


Your Friendly Neighborhood Porn Star

by Erato_Muse



Series: Ishtar [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Actors, Albie is Armie, BDSM, Ballet, Dancers, Dominatrix, Domme, Erotica, Feminist Porn, Inspired by Call Me By Your Name, Kinbaku, M/M, Mattie is Timmy, Pegging, Polyamory, Secret Societies, Shibari, Tantra, Threesome - F/M/M, art student, experimental fanwork, femmedom, hybrid fanwork, if it were a movie Armie and Timmy would be my dream cast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-03-07 03:37:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 60,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Muse/pseuds/Erato_Muse
Summary: New Material, Original Characters:Mattie, 21,  is a former dancer, and current art student. When his rent and tuition go up in the same week, he panics. Becoming a performer for a feminist porn studio seems to be the solution to his problems. There, he meets Albie, 26, an aspiring actor with a traumatic past. Sparks fly, and a healing journey begins as they become co-stars and lovers.





	1. Chapter 1

Professor Alcazar looked at Mattie’s proposal, over the rim of his trendy eyeglasses, which had elegantly settled over his nose. He had perfected the ‘aging hipster in a chunky cardigan and jauntily tied scarf’ look, as one would expect of an artist who’d had their ‘moment’ in New York City in the 80s, in his youth. Mattie was sure he had lots of amazing anecdotes to impart about the days of Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring-in an alternate version of Mattie’s life. In this version, he was pretty sure Professor Alcazar hated him. He was pointedly indifferent about every painting he’d done in his class all semester, and now he was eyeing his final project proposal with even less enthusiasm than someone doing their own taxes.  
“Why the Impressionists?” Professor Alcazar asked.  
“I’m really familiar with their art,” Mattie said.  
“So…it was an easy choice? They’re well known. Even banal,” Professor Alcazar said.  
“Not to everyone. I mean, do you know how much a Renoir or Monet would go for at an auction in France?” Mattie said. He heard his words, and felt he’d sounded eerily like his father.  
“So, because they’re trendy and financially lucrative, you’re interested in their art?” Professor Alcazar countered.  
“No, that’s not it, either,” Mattie said. He felt frustrated. He wondered if it would be idiotic to say ‘Because I like them.’  
That was it, really, his only motivation behind choosing Impressionist art as the subject of his class project, which would be worth an exam grade. He had always loved their colors and peaceful scenes, and the idea that approximating the way light can distort and accentuate form was once a radical notion and movement. He had fond memories of going to museums and galleries with his parents when they were still together, looking at paintings by Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Vincent Van Gogh and others in hushed and peaceful spaces.  
“Mr. Bellamy, let me be frank-if you want to make some sort of living copying Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for people who want something to hang over their couch, I think you’ve proven yourself very well suited to that line of work since you’ve been in my class,” Professor Alcazar said. “You can sketch. You can paint. You’re very capable. But you haven’t displayed any originality, and I don’t think you’re seeking it. Do you really love art?”  
“Yes!” Matt protested.  
“You appreciate its beauty, but do you love creating it?” Professor Alcazar said.  
“Yes,” Matt said. He felt hurt. He knew he wasn’t one of the students that Alcazar considered promising and innovative, but he didn’t know his antipathy ran this deep.  
“Are you sure there isn’t something else that you feel more passionately about?” Professor Alcazar said.  
His words had found their mark. Mattie thought about the last time he had danced.  
“Ballet,” he said quietly.  
Professor Alcazar clearly hadn’t expected an answer to his question. Perhaps it had just been a rhetorical dig at Mattie’s lackluster effort at art.  
“Ballet?” He echoed. “You’re a dancer?”  
“I was,” Matt said. “I had an accident. An injury. It was my ankle, and…. I had to stay off of it for a few months, so I didn’t have the chance to apply to any dance companies, like all my friends from dance school. I got into painting while I was recovering, so…”  
“So,you decided to go to college for art,” Alcazar finished. His demeanor had changed. Rather than pompously admonishing Matthieu, now he seemed to want to hear his story, and understand him.  
Matt nodded. “Yeah. I mean, if I wanted to dance again, I would have to rehab my ankle to rebuild all the lost muscle toning, and that would be…expensive.”  
“Not as expensive as this college, trust me,” Alcazar said ruefully.  
Mattie laughed. He could just about cover the tuition by strategically saving what he earned at the mall and help from his parents.  
“Yeah, but the thing is…I wasn’t that good,” Matt said.  
Alcazar had just been reading him for being a mediocre artist, but he looked sympathetically doubtful as he told Mattie, “I doubt that. I know dancers are hard on themselves. My oldest daughter did ballet until she was 15. She switched to modern dance.”  
“It’s a lot more forgiving for female dancers,” Mattie said.  
Alcazar nodded. “You were good,” Mattie said. “I have a feeling. You miss it, so you must have been pretty good. I’m sorry, Mr. Bellamy. I thought you were approaching this class with a reluctance to grow as an artist. I had no idea you missed your true art. Is there any way you could find your way back to it? There are more classes for adult beginners, these days.”  
“I wouldn’t be a beginner, exactly…” Matt said.  
“Well, that would give you an edge,” Alcazar said.  
Matt smiled. “Um…do you accept my project proposal?”  
“Yes. First draft due in two weeks,” Professor Alcazar said.

Mattie smiled, and was still smiling as he walked out of the building that housed his art class. Professor Alcazar didn’t hate him! And, he’d seen right through him to his true problem: he missed ballet. He hadn’t danced since he was a senior in high school. He had been practicing for his audition tape for a summer program at the Paris Opera Ballet. Even his father, who usually took more notice in Mattie’s eldest sister, Celine, was excited at the prospect that the summer program would turn into a spot at the ballet’s school that next autumn. Then, his ankle flipped, and all his years of effort and passion for dance, identifying himself as a dancer, and associating himself with other ballet dancers, came to an end, in pain.  
His ankle healed, but he’d been thrown off track and had to start over. Painting had been his outlet for the frustration of healing, but maybe Alcazar had a point: it wasn’t his passion. His true art….  
True art. The phrase turned round in his mind as he walked under the leafless trees and gray winter sky to the parking lot. Matt drove to the mall, where he worked at a small shop called Perfume Kingdom. There he sold women’s fragrances with the owner, Amir, and his son, Salim. He and Mattie went to high school together, attended the same college, and the job was a huge favor on Salim’s part.  
When he got to the mall, he found Salim leaning over the counter flirting with his girlfriend, Noor.  
“Mattie!! Did you see ‘Vampireville, USA’ last night?” Noor said enthusiastically.  
Both Salim and Noor had beautiful brown skin and bright dark eyes. Salim’s hair, like Mattie’s, was dark brown, wavy and shoulder length, although Mattie’s eyes were green and his skin refused to tan, suited to winter and rainy days. Noor wore a hijab, which today was a light pink that matched her pink linen blouse. Mattie liked her very much. She loved any novel to do with vampires, and had talked him into watching her favorite cable tv show, “Vampireville, USA”.  
“I was writing my art project proposal. I’ll have to catch up on my phone,” Mattie said.  
Salim subtly shook his head, and Timmy looked behind his friend and past the shelves of Bulgari, Dior, Vince Camuto, Burberry, Juicy Couture, Elizabeth Arden, Elizabeth Taylor, and other designer fragrances. The door to the stockroom was open, and Mattie could see the corner of Amir’s Urdu newspaper. He didn’t allow the boys to be on their phones at the counter, of course.  
“I mean, fill me in,” Mattie said.  
Noor opened her mouth to fill Mattie in on the latest exploits of Sadie the small town waitress and her boyfriend, Chuck, the vampire, when Salim interrupted,  
“So, did Alcazar take your Impressionists idea? I know he’s been giving you a hard time.”  
Noor looked miffed, and Mattie felt awkward. Her features settled, and Mattie decided it was safe to answer.  
“Well, actually, we had a pretty deep talk, and he was surprisingly nice to me. Of course, he started off saying that I had a long career making furniture store art ahead of me,” Mattie said.  
“Ouch!” Salim said.  
“Yeah. But, when I told him that I only started getting into art a couple of years back when I hurt my ankle, he eased up. Maybe he has Split Personality Disorder,” Mattie said, and shrugged.  
“He probably wants to fuck you. He was only a hard-ass out of sexual tension,” Salim said, in hushed tones so his dad wouldn’t hear him.  
“Salim! Don’t be rude,” Noor said, and while she was at it added, “And don’t interrupt me again!”  
“I didn’t interrupt you, you weren’t talking!” Salim said.  
“I was going to tell Timmy about ‘Vampireville, USA’, and you knew that!” Noor said.  
Amir came out of the stockroom, and pointedly cleared his throat.  
“All right now, children, what’s the trouble?” he said.  
“Children....? Dad, come on…” Salim groaned, but his father looked at him sternly.  
“Sorry, I was just about to head back to the jewelry store,” Noor said. Her family, who were Pakistani like Salim and Amir, owned a jewelry store in the mall that sold huge diamond and gold jewelry that only a rapper could love.  
“Don’t get distracted like that again, today,” Amir said sternly. Salim looked stormy and wounded. Amir turned to Matthieu and said, “How are those art classes going?”  
“Wonderful, sir! My professor accepted my research project proposal,” Matt reported.  
“That’s brilliant. What artist will you be researching?” Amir asked.  
“The Impressionists,” Matt said.  
Amir nodded his approval. “Very good. On your day off, I recommend a long stroll through the museum’s collection.”  
Matt nodded. It was nice to be getting advice from someone. Amir was very caring and kind towards him, but sometimes hard on Salim, and it was awkward for Matt. He could feel Salim looking at him with disdain. Later, when Amir went on a lunch break and left them alone to man the shop, Amir said,  
“You should see yourself when you talk to my dad. ‘Yes, sir’, ‘Wonderful, sir’. He’s pompous enough without you treating him like he knows everything,” Salim said.  
“He’s a good boss. I mean, I’d rather be here than Mc Donald’s,” Matt said. And, he was more available than Matt’s dad, who lived in France. He’d settled in his home country after the divorce, and Mattie and his sister had always spent summer break and part of winter break with his family in Burgundy.  
“Don’t knock Mickey D’s. We’ll probably both be working there,” Salim said.  
“Huh?” Mattie asked.  
“Dude, didn’t you see your email? Maybe the tuition increase is a sign. Like, I could be booking more jobs as a DJ if I really tried, you know?” Salim said.  
“What?” Matt said.  
“You really didn’t see it, at all?” Salim asked.  
He pulled out his phone. “Look,” he said, and showed Mattie the email. He knew that one was waiting in the inbox of the email app on his phone which he seldom checked, informing him that his school’s tuition had just went up $1,500.  
He felt like he had just developed the flu. Mattie felt hot and cold with shock.  
“Dude…my rent just went up. My mom said she would help me cover it, but I’d have to figure out a new ‘financial management strategy’,” Mattie said.  
“So, does that mean get a second job?” Salim said.  
“Basically, but I already have just enough time to go to class, study, work here, and sleep. Poorly. For four hours a night,” Mattie said.  
“Shit,” Salim commiserated. “Well, my dad’s just going to hang it over my head the next time I fuck up.” He imitated Amir’s Pakistani accent, its proper and elegant inflections, ‘All the money that your mother and I spend on your university education..’ insert my latest mistake,” Salim groaned. “What about your dad?”  
“We’re…not close. And he’s already giving my sister so much help with her ballet career,” Tim said.  
“He can afford it! He owns a Burgundian vineyard. Angelina Jolie is probably his neighbor,” Salim said.  
“We’re just not like that. Celine is the one he…notices. I couldn’t ask him for a favor like that,” Matt said. “I know you think your dad is hard on you, but from what I can tell, its just because he cares. The only time I felt like my dad cared is when he could brag to all our relatives that I was going to be at the Paris Opera Ballet..then that didn’t happen.”  
“Sorry, Matt,” Salim said, earnestly. “Look, its not the end of the world. You’ll figure it out. Maybe Noor’s dad will hire you, if I get her to talk to him.”  
“I don’t think she’s doing you any favors, man,” Mattie said.  
Salim winced. He’d forgotten that his girlfriend was pissed at him.  
“Hey, I think Snooki and JWoww are coming our way,” Mattie said. Two young women with long hair extensions, big earrings, tight ripped jeans and knockoff purses approached, and the boys got into ‘salesmen’ role. Matt put the thought of his rent and tuition out of his mind for a little while, but he could feel the stress just beneath his skin, building and demanding.

 

“Savasana,” Willow said, and all the students in the Yoga studio sprawled on their towels and mats, ready for rest.  
Albie looked over at Alexa and smiled. Her thin body and light, bronze tinged skin were misted with sweat. She grasped Albie’s large, hairy hand. Albie looked around at the other Yogis. They were people of all bodily descriptions, genders, ages, and ethnicities. Looking around at the room periodically while they all did Yoga was inspiring. For an hour at a time, people with every manner of background were joined in the same activity. No matter what was on their mind when they came in the door and what had transpired in their lives, they all dropped it for a little while and found peace. When class began, a dramatic monologue for acting class and lines for an audition were whirring in Albie’s mind. “Vampireville, USA” was the biggest opportunity that had come his way. His agent, Violet, said he was perfect for it.  
“You look good shirtless, kiddo. You’re big, blonde-you were born to play a shirtless werewolf on cable TV,” she said, and then lit up a Virginia Slim.  
Albie closed his eyes. “You are loved,” Willow said, as they all suspended their thoughts and slipped into a state of rest that was on the shore of sleep.  
Alexa’s soft, small hand slipped out of Albie’s grasp.  
You are loved.  
The words rang through his mind, even though Savasana was supposed to be a mindless state. Willows’s words were an echo in a valley. They rang through Albie, and feelings stirred, old feelings. Sweat settled and cooled on his skin, and Albie heard the sound of his own breathing. It lulled him into physical rest even when his heart was waking up and shuddering with things he thought he had forgotten.  
Willow’s sound bowl woke the Yogis up.  
“Albie..Albie,” Alexa said. “You’re crying.”  
“What?” he said.  
He tasted salt, and wiped at his face. He had been crying in Savasana.  
“That happens when you’re waking up, when old buried issues are coming up to the surface and presenting themselves, so that you can say goodbye to them as you heal,” Alexa said.  
Willow looked at Alexa and gave her an approving nod.  
“That’s a really good point,” Willow said, and addressed the rest of the class, saying, “You never know what emotion will present itself, but we shouldn’t reject any of them. They all have something to teach us, and they can all visit, for a little while. Take seated pose.”  
She picked up a paperback book and read them a poem by Rumi, called ‘The Guest House’.

“Wanna talk about that?” Alexa asked, as they walked out of the Yoga studio.  
“Not really,” Albie said.  
“Albie….are you keeping secrets from your Mistress?” Alexa purred. Anyone passing them on the street would see a petite young Asian woman in sweaty yoga clothes, and a tall blonde man in sweat pants and a sweaty tshirt. They wouldn’t guess that Alexa was a dominatrix, and Albie her lifestyle slave.  
He looked down at her, into her dark eyes. “No, Mistress,” he whispered dutifully and affectionately.  
She caressed his face, a message that they would talk later. They walked into a coffeeshop and got in line for green smoothies.  
“Look-it’s that floppy haired puppy you like,” she said.  
Albie subtly glanced, out of the corner of his eye. It was him-willowy hipster with wavy chestnut brown hair, earbuds perpetually lodged in his ears, head nodding in unabashed immersion in the music. He ticked off the detracting factors-too skinny, flat ass, too young, probably a hipster who had to try every new restaurant, rapper, and music festival before everyone else, and guilted people who hadn’t heard of them.  
He knew he was just making excuses not to talk to him. He wished Alexa would make him do it. Her punishments and domination were meant to make him better, give him a framework to heal.  
“He wouldn’t be interested in someone like me,” Albie said.  
Alexa looked at him skeptically, but looked away and gave their order to the barista.

 

Mattie surfed job listing websites. A second job would be his only way out of that.  
CBL driver?  
Home caregiver?  
Night shift at a gas station?  
Uber or Lyft driver?  
Nothing seemed to fit his schedule or experience. He looked around at the people in the café. Soft folk music played over the PA, and the murmurs of conversation joined it. People read books from the shelf, or clicked away on their laptops. Everyone had problems, he knew this. But, everyone around him looked a lot happier and less stressed out than him. The couple at the counter, a tall and athletically built blonde guy and a petite Asian woman dressed in Yoga clothes-probably lived in one of the lofts around the corner houses in renovated warehouses or factories, and probably found the neighborhood ‘quaint’ and ‘on the rise’. Their rent probably hadn’t just been raised $500-the new coffeehouses, bistros, bakeries, and Yoga studios were all for them, the new arrivals. 

Feeling frustrated, Mattie decided to walk back to his apartment. He had his research to do on the Impressionists, and he felt like he could think better at home. He climbed the stairs, because the elevator was predictably broken. He sprawled on his bed like a starfish, his laptop on his stomach. The warmth of it was comforting.  
He meant to look up some Impressionist paintings…but his attention wandered. He was too stressed to focus. Mattie took a deep breath- then typed, "Ishtar.com." He'd stumbled upon the site a few months ago. The site claimed to be 'Feminist Pornography'. Mattie wasn't exactly sure how porn could have anything to do with feminism. His mom and her friends all called themselves feminists, but he sure hoped this was not what they meant. The site offered short erotic stories, live cams, and a lifestyle blog geared towards Millenial feminists. He was sure that section had lots of great offerings: snarky vivisections of Trump's latest tweets, sex toy buyer's guides, reactions to the last episode of "Broad City." Thats not what he was looking for. The stress was becoming tingly excess energy, and buzzing along his spine, and lower body. Mattie went to the Videos tab. Ishtar had a variety of scenes. At first, Mattie found himself gravitating towards threesomes, two guys and one girl…then his tastes shifted, to two guys…or three guys…or one guy alone, masturbating. He was beginning to discern a pattern. It wasn't exactly news to him- once he hit his teens, he found his eyes drawn to the way white tights on the tall, athletically built principal dancer cast as Siegfried, Romeo, Albrecht, or Desiree fit like skin over their taut bottoms, and outlined their crotch in a way impossible to ignore, like David Bowie in "Labyrinth". He hadn't really defined what this meant with any label or term. Mattie scrolled through the list of scenes of men masturbating solo. On each selection, a muscular, flirtily smiling man was looking into the camera, holding his penis. If Mattie just hit the little white triangle on each video, they would unfreeze, come to life. Just that quick. It explained all those click bait articles that came up on social media claiming that "Millenials" had less sex, fewer dates and relationships than previous generations. They were a class of voyeurs, a timid and prideful lot afraid to put their hearts on the line. It was easier to watch from a distance, and the Internet offered a lot of material. Meeting people was hard. Freshman year, he'd tried, but those friendships were made in the first flush of enthusiasm at being away from home. He hadn't kept up with anyone, and didn't feel anyone was making the effort with him, either. He went to parties when he was invited, made out with a few people- girls, guys, whatever- but he was still a virgin, and never saw any of those people again. They were just bad kisses and vague memories. Sophomore year, he'd been a hermit, albeit a busy one. He felt like he was still getting used to the world outside ballet. He chose Tristen Ludlowe, because he was pretty sure that was Brad Pitt's character in "Legends of the Fall." Weren't porn guys supposed to have names like Chet Driller, or Dirk Magnum? It was different. Tristen. It sounded like sad in French: Triste. A very serious, romantic name. Tristen Ludlowe wasn't smirking suggestively into the camera, like some of the other performers. Rather, his head was thrown back a little, and his features were engraved with bliss. That look got Mattie's attention, pulled at his navel, made him want to see more. He hit play. He took his earbuds out of his laptop, and Tristen Ludlowe's deepthroated, masculine moans filmed the room. With a little toning, he would have a good physique for ballet- Mattie was reminded of the bodies of the boys he had crushed on when he was a dancer, by Tristen's body, so much bigger and stronger than his. He was blonde- why else the allusion to Brad Pitt, and wholesomely handsome, almost like the guy ahead of him in line at the cafe. Mattie watched, enrapt and aroused, as Tristan stroked his long, thick, rosy cock, looking more blissed out as he got more into it. His long legs, dusted with rusty blonde, almost auburn hair, parted as his body became more subdued by pleasure and pliant, exposing the plump swell of his buttocks where it met his thighs, and the pink little nook of his anus. Lust and curiosity met like two currents over the ocean- as much as he enjoyed the sight of Tristen's big hand stroking his weeping cock, he wanted to see him penetrated. As if reading his thoughts, Tristen selected a phallus that looked as if it had been carved from milky pink rose quartz from a small table, and pressed the round tip to the door of his body. Mattie's stomach felt warm and a demanding pressure built in his lower body. He hurriedly put his hand in his Adidas track pants and took hold of the warm, hard flesh of his slender cock. He touched himself demandingly, and came quickly, Tristen's noises in his ears as he closed his eyes. Mattie felt sleepy, and the top of his head ached and felt naked. But, he cleaned up, and changed. The video had ended, and the white triangle had appeared, giving him the option to start all over. "Interested in Performing?" Read a link below the video. He had never noticed that, before. He laughed, at first. A job application? To be a porn star? But, it was probably easier to jack off on camera, like Tristen Ludlowe, for a few minutes than to get certified as a CBL Driver by the time his rent was due next month. Didn't porn stars make a lot of money? Mattie clicked the link, and when the submission box appeared, he entered his name and email address


	2. Chapter 2

Matthieu Bellamy. He stood out. The picture attached to his application was of a face saved from androgyny only by spotty facial hair just above his full, rosy lips. He looked like Woolf’s Orlando when He (or, She) became Elizabeth I’s last lover. His face had the perfectly even and girlishly youthful beauty of the apostle seated beside Christ in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, the beardless one. His eyes were wide, darkly lustrous green. He had as much in common with the usual suspects, with their protein powder pecs and their tribal band tattooes, as the tender and fragile first daffodil of spring has in common with cheap carnations. The other applicants were already forgotten, and he was Alexa’s only choice.  
“Him,” Alexa aid, and turned her laptop round so that Joey could see Matthieu’s picture.  
“Pass,” Joey said.  
Alexa looked at her in surprise, but waited for Their opinion. Joey was dressed in Their usual attire, black skinny jeans, a black boyfriend tee, and a faded heather gray hoodie. Their hair was short, making Their eyes look vulnerable and jewel like in their face, a face from a black and white photograph from the days of childhood illnesses, when the children’s hair was shorn and burnt. Alexa’s hair was long, swished around when she walked, and she had to flip it from one shoulder to the next when she leaned over to look at something. She wanted to cut it, but always forgot to do it. She was wearing a red latex cheong sam dress that showed a generous amount of thigh. She imagined she was in her pyjamas. She couldn’t wait to go home, but had been working later hours since Albie moved out. She wasn’t used to the solitude, yet.  
The walls of the office she shared with Joey at Ishtar Films were painted violet, and a mandala was painted over the papasan chair against the wall. On their desk was a small red ceramic Buddha, amethyst crystlas, and some mint green succulent cactuses.  
“He’s different,” Alexa said.  
“He looks too young,” Joey said.  
“Says here he’s 21,” Alexa said.  
Joey scoffed. “You believe that? He’s lying. We’re not going down for that.”  
“That’s what background checks are for. I can call for one right now,” Alexa said. “I love his eyes. And those lips. He’s like a Botticelli angel.”  
Joey smiled bemusedly. They were asexual, aromantic, and gender non-binary.  
“So, you want him?” Joey asked.  
“For Ishtar,” Alexa clarified.  
“What about Albie? I mean, I know he moved out, but…” Joey said.  
“He’s still my sub, but our arrangement has evolved. I want him to focus on his goals, and we decided that he was ready to live on his own,” Alexa clarified.   
“So, you aren’t taking Donatello’s David as your new lifestyle slave?” Joey quipped.  
“Send him an email. We’re interested,” Alexa said firmly.

 

Mattie didn’t feel any different. He didn’t feel like someone who had decided to be a porn star. He felt like himself-same ankle that felt stiff and swollen, like the area around the joint had been stuffed with sink caulking, that made a popping noise whenever he rotated it. Same face in the mirror, same wavy dark hair and embarrassingly lanky but soft body that had held him back in his ballet days. He had never been cast as the gallant prince, but had been one of the figures in the background-a villager, a member of a royal court, etc.   
His older sister, Celine, on the other hand, craved the spotlight, and belonged there. She was a principal at the city ballet, and had most recently danced Aurora in “Sleeping Beauty”. When they were kids, he was known by the dancers around them as Celine’s adorable and shy little brother-petted but overlooked. Only when he started practicing for the Paris Opera Ballet summer program had he felt like ballet was all his own.  
Mattie’s phone blipped, and he yanked it off the charger while pulling up his pyjama bottoms. He groaned, hoping it wasn’t a price hike on something else in his life: water, air, human affection.  
It was an email, from Ishtar films. After the obligatory “Thank you for your interest….”, the email read that he was to come by the office at 2. He had no idea they were even based in the city! It felt like an eerie coincidence. The address wasn’t far, in fact, he could walk there.  
That meant the scene he had watched with Tristen Ludlowe had been filmed within walking distance of his apartment. Mattie was taken aback by all these coincidences. 

 

“When you told me that you were getting a pet, I thought it would be a dog or a cat,” Denny Salvatore said, as he looked at the iguana in the terrarium.  
“Iguanas are a man’s best friend,” Albie said.  
“The place is looking great,” Denny said appreciatively, looking around Albie’s new condo.   
Albie knew that his best friend was just being kind. The place was pretty bare, just a couch, a table, Tonto’s terrarium, a wall hanging of a mandala and a Bruce Lee poster. All his books and DVDs were in cardboard boxes until he could buy some shelves.   
“Thanks,” Albie said anyway.   
Although Denny was still smiling appreciatively, the air was becoming full of silence. Things between Denny and Albie were sometimes a little awkward. They had been instant best friends after meeting in ninth grade, in Drama class. Albie had somehow bucked up the courage to write Denny a letter telling him that he had a crush on him-it was four pages long and even had Shakespeare quotes he’d poached from the English textbook. Luckily, Denny felt the same way about him, and they became even more inseparable. They muted their feelings slightly at school, around their classmates who wouldn’t have understood, but they could be free at Denny’s house. His mom understood. Albie’s mother, however, didn’t.  
“So, ‘Vampireville, USA’? That’s pretty big,” Denny said.  
Albie smiled, but shook his head, and said, “Its just an under five.”  
“Still, its such a huge show,” Denny said.  
“Can I ask you something?” Albie said.  
Denny nodded.  
“Why did you give up?” Albie said. “On acting, I mean.”  
Denny looked as if he had been waiting for this ever since they had gotten back in touch.   
“When you told me that I was good, in school, I believed you. It made me want to be better. Without you, I didn’t believe it, so I sucked,” Denny said. “Its okay. I mean, I needed a reason to be good, someone to be good for. You know, the way Stephen King says his wife is always the first reader of his books?”  
“Denny….” Albie said, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.   
He wanted to tell him that he didn’t want to go, but he knew that Denny was the last person he had to explain himself to. He knew it all. Albie felt that too-full, too warm feeling in his stomach and chest, like the day before in Yoga, when Willow said, “You are loved” to the class as they slipped into Savasana.  
“It’s okay. But, that’s why,” Denny said. “So, what’s your line?”  
Albie smiled. He would be reading for ‘Werewolf #3’.   
“What’s his story?” he’d asked Violet.  
“He’s the third Werewolf to appear on screen. It’s not Stanley Kowalski, okay kid? Do you want it or not?” she’d said, coughed, and then resumed her composure.   
Albie snarled, and growled in his best southern accent, “Round here, we don’t like no vampires.”  
“Pretty convincing werewolf. So, you’re, like, an Australian werewolf?” Denny said.  
“Australian? No, the show’s set in Louisiana, I’m like, a Cajun werewolf,” Albie said.  
“Oh…well, you can work on that! You have time. That was great,” Denny said.   
Albie checked the pages, and said, “Actually, no it wasn’t. I keep doing that! Saying it backwards. Its supposed to be ‘We don’t like no vampires around here’. How can I keep forgetting something so simple?”  
“It’s a short sentence that can be said a few different ways-somehow its easier to do a long monologue. I don’t know how that works, but its okay, you have time to perfect it,” Denny said.  
Albie hugged him. “Thanks,” he said.  
Denny’s warm breath licked Albie’s neck, and so many feelings came back to him, of exploring each other’s bodies back in high school. The friendship between them made it easier to feel comfortable experimenting. They watched porn or “Queer as Folk” and tried what they saw on screen, looking into each other’s eyes and absorbing each other’s bliss, breathing together, or laughing when things felt benignly awkward. It would be so easy to kiss Denny, to fall into bed with him and fall back into feeling loved by him.   
Albie held back. It wouldn’t be fair to Denny, to begin something like that without clarifying his feelings. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling at all. He pressed a kiss to Denny’ dark hair, and released his slight form.  
Albie’s phone blipped.   
“It’s Lex,” Albie said.  
“Right. When your dominatrix calls, you have to answer, right?” Denny quipped.  
Albie looked at his phone. Alexa had texted, “Need you to film today.”  
Albie sighed. The ‘Vampireville, USA’ audition was still a couple of weeks away, and in the meantime he had Ishtar, and Tristen Ludlowe.

 

Mattie had never met a dominatrix before, but he was pretty sure that he was sitting across from one right now. It wasn’t just Alexa’s physical poise, the subtle grace almost like a ballerina’s, as they walked to her office, or even the fact that she was wearing a latex dress that clung to her slender waist and soft, full hips and bottom. There was an aura wafting from her like the cool vibes of a quartz crystal, or mist curling off an ice cube. Obeying her felt like the only course of action. She looked into his eyes, and Mattie felt like he wasn’t allowed to look away.  
“Are you familiar with Ishtar Films?” Alexa said.  
“Yeah, I’ve actually been watching videos on your site for about a month,” Mattie said.  
“And you were inspired to become a performer?” Alexa said, with a slight hint of bemusement.  
“Not exactly. I mean, kind of. Um….it was a spur of the moment kind of thing,” Mattie said.  
“At Ishtar, we make erotic art that celebrates diversity in many different ways. We strive to create and share genuine bliss, in a respectful and safe environment,” she said.   
“That sounds…different from everything I thought about porn,” Mattie admitted.  
“Feminist pornography doesn’t just cater to the female gaze. Its sensual art with egalitarian aims,” Alexa said.  
She made it sound radical and exciting, like voting for a long-shot candidate in an election, inspired by rousing speeches about hope and change, like taking a class in college that opens your eyes to the hidden mechanisms of the world you always thought you knew, reading a novel whose voice grips you and plunges you into the characters’ emotions, and at the end you understand yourself better. Could porn really be an artistically bold endeavor? Alexa made it sound so.  
“But…you will be having sex on camera. Do you think you can do that, Matthieu?” Alexa said.  
Mattie swallowed. He knew there was no way around that. The sex part. He also knew that he couldn’t admit that he had never had sex before. That was like applying for a barista job and saying he had never made coffee a day in his life.  
“Yeah. I can do that,” he said.   
He thought he’d heard of people, hard-up students like himself, selling their virginity on Craigslist. This was better, it was radical egalitarian art created to bring the masses to bliss. Maybe his painting would get better, with all this edgy new life experience, and Professor Alcazar would finally respect him. Sure, he’d been nice during their meeting about Mattie’s proposal, but just because he felt sorry for him when he told him about his injury. This would be different. He’d find something new within himself, and become a better artist, he was sure.  
“You’re convincing yourself that you can,” Alexa said. “Which means you need time to think about it.”  
“No, seriously, I need this!” Mattie said, before he could stop himself.  
“You need this?” Alexa said, subtly demanding clarification.  
Mattie blushed, feeling like an idiot. He shouldn’t have said that, he was just so afraid that he was going to be dismissed, rejected, when he needed the money so badly.  
“I have some…financial obligations,” Mattie said.  
“I see,” Alexa said. “So, I take it you’d want to start as soon as possible?”  
“Well…um…if you want me,” Mattie said.  
“Oh, yes, I want you,” Alexa said. “But, we can’t start filming just yet. We can only hire you after doing a background check, a drug test, a physical, and some STI tests.”  
“Like, sexually transmitted diseases?” Mattie said.  
“Yes. We can’t endanger our performer’s health. That’s another key difference between traditional pornography and the environment that we create at Ishtar. Our performer’s mental and physical health, and safety is something we work extremely hard to protect,” Alexa said.   
She was so sure of herself and what she was doing. Mattie knew such feelings were absent in himself, and admired them in her.  
“Of course, I’ll do all the tests you need me to,” Mattie agreed.  
The door to Alexa’s office opened. Matt wanted to shrink and bolt out of his seat at the same time. It was Tristen Ludlowe, standing in the doorway. It was surreal, to see Tristen, who had been in the video on his laptop, whose moans had filled Mattie’s room and rang in his ear when he closed his eyes, standing on the threshold of Alexa’s office, wearing jeans and a Wu-Tang Clan tshirt. Mattie wasn’t short, but Tristen was about a head taller than him. In person, his hair had reddish lowlights beneath the gold lustre, and whereas he had been smoothfaced in the video, his face was spangled with appealing stubble. If they kissed, right now, it would burn Mattie’s face raw. He touched his cheek, thinking of it, then quickly pulled his hand away, knowing that he looked strange. Just the night before, Tristen’s video had played on Mattie’s laptop, beside him, and now he was standing right in front of him.


	3. Chapter 3

Albie felt Christmas lights switch on and dance beneath his skin. It was him! The floppy haired puppy! His café crush, whom he had written off as ‘too hipster’ for him to approach. Just because he had worn a blazer, once? He knew that he was too hard on others, because he wasn’t comfortable trying new things or putting his heart on the line with new people. But, now his crush was sitting in Alexa’s office. Why, he wondered? He couldn’t possibly be there to film, could he? He didn’t look like the typical ‘porn guy’, but Alexa was determined to push the boundaries of erotic visual art beyond typical. How had she enlisted the café boy? Surely she recognized him, they had talked about him just the day before.  
Albie was frozen in place in the doorway, and wandering a labyrinth of conjecture at the same time.  
“Tristen,” Alexa said, cooly acknowledging him, and giving him permission to speak with a slender thread of acquiescence that three years as her lifestyle slave had trained him to recognized.  
Being a lifestyle slave went beyond being a submissive. A submissive derived pleasure from playing the submissive role in a scene, BDSM sexual play. A lifestyle slave served their Dominant partner in myriad ways, over an extended period of time. Of course, this was all mutually beneficial and consensual, and the submissive’s guidelines informed how much control the dominant exerted. When Albie and Alexa lived together, he served her by performing domestic chores like cooking, cleaning, caring for her houseplants (two bonsai trees he had secretly named Ben and Arthur, after characters in an infamous LGBT indie movie), and gave her massages after a hard day at work filming or Dommeing her clients professionally. All of this taught Albie responsibility and tenderness during a time when he needed to learn how to care for himself and another person, after years of feeling emotionally closed off.  
It was a lot different, being alone at the condo with just his iguana, Tonto.  
“Like, Tristen Ludlowe?” said the puppy. Tristen couldn’t believe his name had fallen from those pink lips.  
“Ah, you have a fan, it seems,” Alexa said.  
“I saw one of Tristen’s solo videos,” he said, and actually blushed.  
“Ah….Tristan is such a revelation, isn’t he? That look he gets, of total abandon? Maybe if you pass all of our standards, you’ll film with him one day,” Alexa said.  
This was too much. He, Tristen’s café crush, looked appealingly overwhelmed with bashfulness. His skin was so fair that there was no way he could hide a blush. His cheeks reddened, and it was both innocent and sensual, it was so genuine. He shook his shoulder-length chestnut brown hair, in a nervous gesture.  
“That will be all, Matthieu. I hope to see you soon, but that depends on the results of your preliminary requirements. Thank you for coming in,” Alexa said.  
“Thanks so much for getting in touch with me,” Matthieu said.  
Albie’s skin tensed in anticipation as Matthieu got out of his chair. He would walk by, their bodies would be just inches apart, in just the few seconds it would take him to cross the room.  
“Nice to meet you, Tristen,” Matthieu said.  
Albie felt tongue-tied, and barely got out a, “Same,” and a jerky nod. He had been watching him type and sketch, suck at his straw until every trace of coffee was gone and the straw shook and made that annoying air-sucking sound, or wipe whipped cream from his top lip when he took his lid off and drank from the cup, for weeks now. He was thin and dark haired like Denny, but his eyes were dark green instead of brown and his skin was fair with a slight dusky tint, Gallic as opposed to Denny’s Mediterranean olive complexion. He’d noticed him because of the similarities, at first, but continued to watch him and fell in love with his adorable mannerisms-his slurps, his yawns, the way he seemed to forget that he was in a crowded café and study like he was alone in his dorm.  
He was the normal person that Albie didn’t get a chance to be, someone he would have wanted to be friends with if he had gotten a chance to graduate high school and study acting in college.  
Matthieu left the office, and through the glass floor to ceiling window Tristen could see him take the wrought iron staircase and jog down from the gallery to the lobby. Ishtar was housed in a former factory building in the renovated warehouse district, which rented office space to various businesses and freelancers. There were also seminars and events in the building that might be of interest to its tenants, and a bar and lounge in the lobby.  
“His name is Matthieu Bellamy,” Alexa said.  
“He applied to be a performer?” Albie said, incredulously.  
“He did,” Alexa confirmed. “Joey isn’t sold on him. She thinks he looks too young. His application said 21.”  
“I think he looks…angelic. Pure. Happy. Real. Innocent,” Albie said.  
“He has something, doesn’t he? Gets a reaction out of people. You look at him, and see all you’ve ever hoped for. You almost don’t want to touch him, so as not to tarnish him, but he dares you to, doesn’t he? Beauty like that, in nature, is meant to attract. It’s a survival mechanism,” Alexa said. “What use do you think beauty is, in human beings?”  
“Inspiration,” Albie said.  
Alexa smiled. “Not a bad answer, at all. I wasn’t being flippant, back there. You really might end up working together. As it turns out, you might have been his inspiration to apply.”  
“I can’t believe he’s actually here,” Albie said.  
“I can. This neighborhood is getting more expensive to live in every day,” Alexa said. “Whatever happened to moving to the suburbs?”  
“Turns out its easier to colonize a low-income neighborhood, and price all the locals out by renovating it,” Albie said.  
“It’s a shame. The energy here is getting oppressive,” Alexa said. “Maybe that’s why I responded the way I did to Mattie-he has such a strong, radiant energy. Its what drew you to him-you’re looking for light in the world instead of fearing the darkness will always follow you.”  
“I don’t know about that, Lex. I’m just taking things one day at a time. When we met, I was sleepwalking through life. I was making good money, filming for Toy Boys, but I didn’t expect anything better out of life. You’ve helped me clear my mind and feel alive again,” Albie said.  
Alexa smiled. “Thank you, Albie,” she said. She held out her hand. He kissed it, like Prince Charming in a fairy tale.  
“Are you happy that you ran into Matthieu here? I think it’s a very meaningful coincidence,” Alexa said.  
Albie wasn’t sure what to make of it. He was excited by the prospect of getting to know Matthieu, but scared, too. What would he say, when they saw each other again?

 

It was all starting to feel more real. Mattie wasn’t worried about the physical, or passing the medical tests. After all, he’d never had sex, so he was going to be negative for everything. But, once he passed, he would be hired by Ishtar.  
Maybe he would film with Tristan Ludlowe. He seemed reserved, but not snobby. You never knew how people were going to react to new hires at any job. Before Perfume Kingdom, Mattie had encountered unfriendly co-workers who thought new additions meant they were going to lose their hours and pay. Tristen didn’t seem jealous, just a little withdrawn. When he spoke, Mattie’s soul shuddered just beneath his skin. He had only said one word, but it was the same voice that had moaned and sighed, filling Mattie’s room with sensual noises. Arousal slithered and lashed at the base of his back, in his lower belly, at the memory of that video. Now he had met Tristan in person, knew the lustre of light in his dark reddish blonde hair, knew the rosy, ruddy, healthy tint of his skin, knew how much taller he was than Mattie. Tristen would have to bend down to kiss him, or Mattie would have to stand on his tip-toes slightly. He imagined Tristen’s big hands caressing his sides, slipping under his shirt, like the anonymas he’d made out with at parties, and his head swam with waves of desire at the thought.  
Mattie’s reverie was interrupted by a text from Celine. “Lunch?” she texted.  
“Sure. At the ballet?” he asked.  
“Yup,” she answered.  
“Meet you there, we can go to the café at the museum,” Mattie texted.  
He looked once more at the innocuous brick building, with a faded Coca Cola advertisement from the early 20th century painted on one side, last spring’s rotted wisteria and the summer’s dead kudzu clinging in a brown necklace of dead leaves to another, and then got on his bicycle. Celine had little free time, but while they were grabbing lunch at the café at the fine art museum he was sure he could talk her into a stroll through the Impressionist’s. Mattie switched off his thoughts, and pushed aside the electrified anticipation he felt when he thought of possibly filming with Tristen Ludlowe, as he cycled beside the flow of traffic.


	4. Chapter 4

Mattie tied his bike to the rack in front of the city ballet’s innocuous building. It was where the ballet had its training, rehearsals, and performances. It was neither a large nor old company, and Mattie knew his sister, Celine, felt she would be doing better if she had been allowed to study in Paris. However, their mother was given primary custody of them in the divorce, dashing Celine’s dreams of living and training in Paris and taking the train out to their father’s vineyard in Burgundy on her weekends off. Celine had quickly become a principal dancer at the city ballet company, but sometimes felt frustrated and craved more of a challenge and a bigger stage. Her company had recently travelled to Cuba on a cultural exchange, which Mattie hoped had left her more fulfilled than she normally felt.

He breezed by the receptionist, who probably thought he was a dancer on his way to morning class. The whitish gray walls were sparsely decorated with photographs from past performances, dancers in practice gear smilingly huddled up for the camera, and art from posters of past productions. Mattie could tell by the lighting of the photographs, the art of the posters, and the mood of the subjects in the photo what era they came from. The 80s dancers were buoyant and enthused with their craft, the 90s dancers looked less sure of themselves, and the more recent photos were of people he recognized from the ballet school where he had learned as a kid, or knew through Celine. She had texted him the studio number of where she was practicing, and said she had enough of a gap between morning class and rehearsals for “Giselle”.

Mattie took the stairs, and felt his ankle pinch a little bit. He was concerned, but had no choice but to keep going. He wondered if his ankle would be a problem passing the Ishtar physical? He dismissed the idea. What did having a bad ankle have to do with filming porn? If Tristen’s video was anything to go by, all Mattie had to do was touch himself.  
The sound of the piano greeted him as he stepped off the last step and onto the carpeted hallway. The practice pianist was playing a lively, almost ragtime piece, which meant the dancers in the studio were being directed through a quickly-paced combination of moves. Morning class was about an hour and a half long, began with independent stretches, then barre work. Lined up on the barres facing the studio’s mirrored walls, they went through the five positions of ballet at the teacher’s instruction. Then, came center work, in which they came to the floor of the studio and did simple choreography that reinforced the fundamentals of dance. Morning class warmed up the dancer’s body, so their bodies were in shape for further rehearsals and performances throughout the day. 

Matthieu stood at the edge of the doorway, watching the dancers do their center work as their teacher, a short but stern looking British lady calling out commands in French, paced the room. Some of the dancers were lined by the barre, so they must have been taking turns in groups coming to the center.  
The young men and women of the ballet all looked focused and moved with the fluid grace, ease, and precision associated with ballet, but Mattie knew that such movements were the product of relentless practice and muscular conditioning. Ballet hurt-it made the toes bleed and skin crack, it pushed the joints and tendons daily with the constant wear and tear of jumps, landings, contorting the ankles into angles, and, for women, dancing en pointe. But, the end result was a picture of grace and poise that marveled audiences because it was different than the jagged, clumsy, dull world and their own heavy, human feet. In their most exceptional feats of balance and height, ballet dancers truly seemed to become the ghosts, faeries, and shapeshifters they portrayed onstage. Mattie watched them execute the teacher’s commands, watched the flexing of their muscles and peace on their faces. He could feel the ghost of the tense and burn in his own arms and legs. They remembered. For one hallucinatory moment, he felt like he could just jump in and join the class, dance in the center, as he had countless afternoons after school and weekends. Bottled energy slithered up and down his spine, and he knew he was looking at the sweaty, moving bodies with desire-he wanted to be them, he wanted to be where they were. Professor Alcazar was right-this was what he truly wanted, and he hadn’t been able to focus on painting because of it.

Most of the class either had a zoned out expression, in their own little world as they moved, because the commands were so familiar, or they were looking at the teacher waiting for a correction or a new command. One dancer glanced over, a tall and athletically built young man with dark hair and light brown eyes. Mattie liked his hairy arms, and the tufts of chest hair peeking out of his tank top. So different to his own body, which was smoother and softer than he would have liked. The dancer who’d noticed him had the physique Mattie had coveted, the strength and definition perfect the Romantic ballet prince roles inhabited by male principal dancers. Mattie just didn’t have the figure for it-he was a stringbean, and always had been.  
Celine noticed Mattie as class ended. She, like the other dancers, looked tired but satisfied, and quite sweaty. The music ended, and all the dancers scattered to their bags to put on or take off and put away layers of clothing. Celine dried off her hair with a towel in a bag, and took a moment to take off her pale pink satin ballet shoes. The class began to file out, including the dancer who had locked eyes with Mattie. The mist of his sweat touched Mattie’s arm as the dancer’s belly brushed his elbow on the way out. He wondered if it was on purpose. His body thrilled.  
“His name’s Misha,” Celine said.  
“Misha?” Mattie repeated.  
“Uh-huh. He’s from Russia. He and his partner, Tatiana,are are going to be our Siegfried and Odette/Odile,” Celine said. “Guess where they dance?”  
“Bolshoi?” Tim asked.  
“Ooh, close,” Celine said. “The Mariinsky!”  
The Bolshoi and the Mariinsky were the two most prestigious ballet companies in Russia, a country where ballet had been innovated to new heights as an art form in the 19th century, with the work of composers like Tchaikovsky and works like “Swan Lake”. During the wars and political upheavals in Europe during the 20th century, many seminal dancers, choreographers, and composers came to the U.S., which kickstarted the ballet culture of major American cities like New York City. The Mariinsky had produced Mikhail Baryshnikov, the most famous male ballet dancer of the latter 20th century.  
“Wow! And, they’re here for “Swan Lake”? How does everyone else feel about that? I mean, the two principal roles are locked in, the company dancers won’t even get a chance to audition,” Mattie said, as he and Celine walked out of the studio, side by side, the smell of her sweat filling his nostrils with the warmed smell of the ocean.  
Celine said, “Oh, you know how dancers can be. Hidden knives in their eyes. You end up knowing everyone, and no one’s your friend.”  
Mattie laughed. Celine could be a little over the top, sometimes.  
“That’s taking it a bit far, don’t you think?” he said.  
“No, I know,” She said. “there have been some grumblings. Much like my stomach. I have about two hours before rehearsal, where do you want to go?”  
“I was thinking the café at the fine arts museum? I have to look at some Impressionist paintings,” Mattie said.  
“Oh, do you need to pick one to copy?” Celine asked.  
Mattie knew she meant nothing by it, but was still wounded. It was too close to Alcazar’s comment about his promising career in furniture store art.  
“I don’t paint copies all day,” Mattie huffed, and knew he sounded like a displeased little brother.  
Celine ignored his peevish tone just like she ignored their mother when they were growing up. If anything Celine didn’t want to deal with was brought up, she locked herself in her room with a classical music CD on her stereo and practiced ballet at the barre installed on her wall for hours, until bedtime. Dancing was her life, her world, and little else penetrated her emotional landscape. It made her come off as unapologetic and aloof, but Mattie admired her confidence. The dominatrix at Ishtar, Alexa, had reminded him of Celine.  
“We can walk there from here. Good. That will keep me warmed up. Two hours between morning class and rehearsal?” Celine said. “A bigger company would be busier.”  
“You need to take a break sometime. Catch your breath,” Mattie said.  
“You’ve forgotten what its like. When you get warmed up, you just want to go all day,” Celine said. Another accidental jab. Talking to Celine could be quite a knife fight, but Mattie didn’t feel like fighting. 

They walked the few blocks to the museum, which was located in a quiet neighborhood of Victorian townhouses shaded by old oak trees. The café overlooked a reflecting pool, the outdoor sculpture garden, and waterfall stairs leading to a terrace shaded by myrtles. Celine got a coffee and a turkey sandwich. Mattie wasn’t very hungry, but got the same, just in case. He didn’t want Celine to see the pained expression on his face as he parted with the money for their lunch. Every dollar was more precious than it had been the week before. Ishtar had better come through-having sex on camera was worth it, if he could continue to afford to live on his own and pay his tuition. Neither dropping out or living with their mom was ideal.  
It would definitely be worth it if he got to film with Tristen Ludlowe. His thoughts returned to Tristen, but now there were thoughts of Misha, too.

He and Celine looked at the Impressionsts gallery, taking in the paintings hung on the white walls. Despite the fact that the paintings displayed were nearly 200 years old, Mattie swore he could smell paint! The distorted colors imitated the effect of sunlight, mist, or bodies in motion. There were scenes of Paris and London in fog, people boating or picnicking in nineteenth century dress, and the dancers and bar patrons of the Folie Bergeres and Moulin Rouge, cabarets of the period known for a bohemian atmosphere. What, Mattie asked himself, did he want to say about these painters and their work? What were they trying to capture? He was still gathering facts about the historical background, but he gathered that this was a time in which art was still a slightly disreputable profession. While some of the painters who came to be known as Impressionists had stable family lives, others were the near penniless patrons of prostitutes, eccentrics, radicals, loners, determined to create art that captured the colors and faces of life as they saw it, rather than the traditional aspiration to portray the heroic and highminded. While their scenes of bathing women, gardens, cities, and beaches were quite staid, now, for the time they had subversively defied all conventional prerogatives of art.  
“So, is this helping for your project? Because you look kind of lost,” Celine said.  
“I’m not lost, I’m thinking,” Mattie said. “where was that museum Mom and Dad took us to, that had the Manet? The one of the girl at the bar at the Folie Bergeres?”  
“I don’t know. But, I love that painting. She looks tired and cross, like she needs to put her feet up or she has a headache, but she can’t show it,” Celine said.  
“You sound like Dad-he always makes up a story about the subject of the painting,” Mattie said.  
“Whereas Mom has to know every detail about the painter and his wife and where they lived and had for breakfast and what different art historians say the painting means,” Celine said.  
Mattie said nothing-once Celine started talking about what she didn’t like about their mother, the conversation could turn into a long one.  
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Mattie said.  
“I don’t think I did, either,” Celine said. “It was just hard for me, you know, being surrounded by all these girls whose parents, especially their mothers, were so proud of them. Mom never shared my dreams.”  
“I don’t think she meant to come off like that. She just wanted you to be well-rounded, and consider lots of different things before settling on ballet full time,” Mattie said.  
To Matthieu’s surprise, Celine hugged him around the shoulders in a sudden show of affection, and said, “You always see the best in everyone and everything, Mattie. I love you so much!”  
“I love you too, Cee,” Mattie said. 

He realized that if he became a porn star, he would be keeping a secret from his sister for the first time in his life. Their parents’ divorce, summer trips to Burgundy, ballet, performances, practice, his injury-they had shared everything important in their lives, until now. He was lying to her, starting today.


	5. Chapter 5

Albie turned the key to the door of the loft where he once, until recently, lived with Alexa. Moving out was a hard decision, but they had agreed that he needed to focus on his career and craft-being a lifestyle slave was a lot more demanding than being a submissive. A submissive was one who enjoyed being overwhelmed utterly by their partner, even to the point of pain being inflicted upon them by their lover. Their pleasure, preferences, and limits were discussed before the act itself, and when something crossed the line a safeword was used, by the submissive towards the dominant partner, to bring the scene to an end. The safeword was sacred. The voice of the sub, expressing their wish to stop, was like Prospero relinquishing his magic at the end of “The Tempest”, willing all that came before to dissolve. The dominant could only pierce, restrain, blindfold, or whatever else if the submissive allowed it.  
Submissive was a trait, a quirk, a kink, a role in a scene. Slave, on the other hand, was more like one of Marina Abramovic’s installations. The scene never ended. Of course service was voluntary, but more focused on the Dominant’s pleasure, which was the slave’s pleasure, too. Albie did domestic things like cooking and cleaning, caring for the plants, but all of his service taught him mindfulness. He lost himself in his tasks, slowed down his thoughts, and in the silence found peace and answers that had long eluded him. Self-care was part of his servitude, too. It helped him grow, and when he decided to pursue acting in addition to filming for Ishtar, he and Alexa agreed that moving out would give him the time and space he needed.  
It was weird to be visiting his old home, the place where he had experienced so much. He opened the door and Alexa was lying on the couch, on her stomach, nude but with her bottom covered with a towel. An ethereal, ambient Lana Del Rey song was playing, and her friend Allison was tattooing her, touching up the lotus on the small of her back. Allison went by the moniker Allison Alien, and was deep into body mod. The whites of her eyes were purple due to injected dye, and her ribbed crop top’s hem floated above the waist of her faded gray skinny jeans, revealing that her belly button had been removed. Alexa looked calm, almost drowsy.  
Albie sat on the floor beside the couch. She smiled the way she did when first waking. Albie’s heart was warm.  
“Did you know that it was him?” he asked.  
“The boy from the café? Ooh, sounds like a French film, doesn’t it “The Boy From the Café,”” she mused.  
Albie was amazed that she could be so playful and calm while a needle was being poked into her skin again and again. Allison tattooed using the hand poke method, a single slender needle held by hand, rather than a tattoo machine. Alexa didn’t seem to feel the pain, and if she did it was being converted to an intoxicating, meditative calm. She had been his Mistress, his Domme, for three years, and he had never asked if she had ever taken the Submissive role, if she found any pleasure in pain. Such questions didn’t seem appropriate. Asking the question about Ishtar’s latest hire, his crush from the café, was impertinent, which was why she was punishing him by playing with him like this, dragging out the answer, amusing herself.  
“You’re not the only one with eyes, Albie-he’s gorgeous. Botticellian,” Alexa said. “The Vampire Armand in a Supreme hoodie.”  
“I think it was Odd Future, actually,” Albie pointed out. “So, you recognized him, when you hired him?”  
“It bothers you,” Alexa said.  
“I’m not angry,” Albie protested.  
“That’s not what I mean. Even happiness can disturb us if we feel our balance is fragile. That just means its hard won. You don’t want to upset the status quo. You feel that he does. Is that why you didn’t approach him whenever we saw him at the coffeeshop?” Alexa said calmly.  
“I didn’t approach him, because…who knows who someone is really going to be when you talk to them? Sometimes you like someone too much to know who they are,” Albie said.  
Alexa clearly found this ridiculous. Her look somehow radiated benevolent disdain.  
“You don’t feel that you can film with him, because you like him so much,” Alexa said.  
“Are you going to make me?” Albie said.  
“Never. That’s not what Ishtar is about,” she said. “nothing occurs without your consent.”  
“I can’t,” he said.  
“Then you can’t,” she said amiably, patiently.  
The music playing from Alexa’s laptop filled the silence between them. She was waiting.  
“I want to. He’s so beautiful, he scares me,” Albie said.  
Alexa looked at him tenderly, with real compassion.  
“Albie, growth is total. You can’t just have self-confidence and go after what you want when it comes to your career. You want to be able to recognize what you want in any area of your life, don’t you?” she said, her eyes closed as Allison continued the tattoo.  
Did the pain move over her body in cold waves like a fever? Was she shivering imperceptibly beneath her skin? Only when Allison cleaned the freshly tattooed skin off with witch hazel and cotton swabs did Alexa wince. Of course, pain was pain to her, like anyone.  
“Why does he scare you?” she asked. “Because you could love him? That’s a silly reason to avoid someone, wouldn’t you agree?”  
He had to agree. She was the Mistress, after all. And, she was right. He’d convinced himself out of talking to Mattie many times when he could have. Now, they would be filming together, and couldn’t help but get to know each other. Once again, Alexa had seized an opportunity to challenge him to grow.  
Her phone rang, and she sat up, not bothering to cover her nude body with the discarded towel that slipped from her body as she moved. She had the figure of an Impressionist nude, smallish breasts, long waist, soft belly, nymphish legs. Besides the chakra lotus tattooes on her back, there were also the Buddhas of Bamiyan, obliterated by the Taliban over a decade ago, restored in ink on her arms, and an ouroboros around her belly-an ancient symbol, a dragon eating its own tail, which symbolized the continuity of life. Her dark hair was slightly wet and a little wild, but her voice was calm and business-like. She hung up with a satisfied smile.  
“Well, Joey got the results of Matthieu Bellamy’s health screening,” Alexa said.  
Albie was half hoping the kid was a hereditary syphilitic, and half concerned, hoping that he was okay. Concerned, for someone he had only admired from afar, made up myriad half-borne head canons about, and met briefly, once.  
“All is well. Do you want to film with him?” Alexa asked.  
The choice was his. Ishtar’s performers’ consent was required, valued, and protected. The consent of a submissive was Prospero’s magic, which animated everything.  
But, if he wasn’t honest, Alexa would know, and he would be punished. Whats more, he would disappoint himself and set back his personal growth.  
Albie thought of Matthieu’s flawlessly beautiful face, the face of an emperor’s deified paramour immortalized in marble, and his gamine frame. He looked fragile, but Albie suspected hidden muscle…he wanted to handle Matthieu gently, but wondered if Matthieu had it in him to ravish him, overwhelm him, like Dionysus who appeared so young and tender but had all the appetite and potential for cruelty of any Olympian god.  
He swallowed. A montage flicked through his head, images of his hand around Mattie’s swannish throat, and red ropes criss-crossed around Mattie’s fair skin. He wanted this. This was different than asking Mattie out in the coffeeshop around the corner from the loft. He didn’t have to make him laugh, charm him, somehow make a stranger like him…all the things he didn’t know how to do. This was porn, and porn was what Albie knew better than anything else. Maybe if they were co-stars at Ishtar, they would like each other? If he refused to film with him, he’d never know.  
“Yes,” Albie said. 

 

Mattie didn’t go to the doctor much. He could if he wanted to, he was on his mom’s insurance plan, but when he got sick he just toughed it out. He still thought like a dancer, and dancers rarely let minor illnesses and injuries knock them off their feet. So, doctor’s offices weren’t the most familiar environments to him. He was slightly nervous. Maybe it wasn’t the tests that he was waiting to take, sitting in the sterile waiting room, reading an ancient issue of the Hollywood Reporter, being blasted with the overenthusiastic air conditioning, that made him nervous. It was that he was one step closer to filming at Ishtar.  
He signed some paperwork, gave over his insurance information, waited some more, then the door to the exam rooms opened and a nurse in teal scrubs called his name. She even pronounced ‘Matthieu’ the French way. He usually didn’t insist, at the risk of sounding like a clove smoking arthouse douchebag. Mattie and the nurse chatted as she escorted him down the gleaming white hallway.  
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask…are you from Quebec?” she asked cheerfully. Even though he said no, she happily recounted a vacation to Montreal, until they reached a white door.  
“Bonne chance!” she said, and wiggled her fingers in a cheerful wave goodbye.  
Mattie wondered if she knew what profession he was going into, and why he was being tested today. Maybe the staff scarcely cared, maybe they were used to it.  
“Matthieu Bellamy?” asked the doctor, glancing at the clipboard in her hand as she walked in.  
“Present,” Mattie said, then felt like a dork for doing so. She wasn’t calling roll, and this wasn’t school!  
The doctor looked up, and smiled. Mattie felt calmer, disarmed by her bemused and warm expression.  
“Well, Mattie, let’s get started,” the doctor said. “Has it been thirty days or more since you were last sexually active?”  
“Well, no…” Mattie said.  
“How long has it been, then?” The doctor said, her pen poised to take down the information on her clipboard.  
“Never,” Mattie said. “I’ve never had sex. But, the tests are for my job, where I will be having sex. Does that change things?”  
She smiled again, but a bit wryly this time.  
“Matthieu, the tests were ordered by Ishtar, a company who has engaged us for health services many times before. We understand the nature of their work. I won’t discourage you from your choice to work for them,” said the Doctor. “But, that line of work does mean that you have to be diligent about your health. You and your partner should, preferably, wear protection at every encounter, when you’re filming and in your private life. If you contract an STI, your health and all your partners’ health will be compromised.”  
“I understand,” Mattie said amiably, but he was getting nervous again. This was heavy stuff. Nothing he hadn’t heard in Sex Ed, but that was back in 10th grade in high school, and it had more weight now than it had then. The doctor continued,  
“You should be tested monthly.”  
“Here?” Mattie said.  
“Of course! Ishtar makes those kinds of arrangements for all their performers, that I know of, or you could make your own arrangements and give your employers your results,” said the Doctor. She looked at Mattie with an expression of tender feeling, tinged with sadness.  
“You’re so young,” she said.  
Mattie knew he looked younger than he actually was. He was a few inches above average height, but he was slight, and his face was young, almost girlish.  
“I’m okay,” he said, in answer to her concern, but he wasn’t sure if that was the right answer or if she had really been asking a question, at all.  
The doctor took the saliva swabs and blood samples that she needed, and said that the results would be ready in an hour or so.  
“You’re going to be emailed a copy, as is your employer,” the Doctor informed him, and gave him another slightly sad smile. 

Mattie both appreciated and resented her concern. Was it really such a big deal, that he was doing porn? Maybe she was reminded, by Mattie’s age, of her own children. When he was in Alexa’s office, he had felt sure and excited that he was about to become apart of a daring art project. Now, he wondered if he should just call the whole thing off and get another kind of second job. A barista at Starboard, maybe?  
As Mattie was heading out of the doctor’s office, Noor called.  
“Come to the movies with us!” she said brightly.  
“Who’s us?” Mattie asked, and wondered if Noor was trying to set him up with her sister, Adara. A stitch quivered in his stomach. He hadn’t told Noor that he was interested in guys, so maybe she was trying to play matchmaker. That would be a disaster.  
“Me and Salim. So it won’t look like a ‘date’,” Noor said.  
“So, his dad knows that you’re dating, but your family still doesn’t?” Mattie asked.  
He was relieved that this wasn’t a blind date with Adara, or another girl. Mattie wasn’t sure how he felt about his sexuality, exactly. He’d checked scenes with guys, and girls as his preferences on his Ishtar application, and he had been turned on by scenes of men with women on the Ishtar website. Maybe this was why so many people his age seemed to fall down a rabbithole of virtual content, watching so much porn that now it was a fairly normalized thing to do. They were all just trying to figure out who they were, and what they liked. At the moment, he was comfortable with the idea that sexuality could be fluid. How can one define something elusive, a bouquet of feelings that arose at the invitation of unpredictable stimuli?  
In answer to his question, Noor sighed. “You know how my parents are. I mean, they want me to have structure, and I appreciate that…but I’m in college now, and they’re still soooo strict! I have to type in the code to the parental controls on our TV to watch ‘Vampireville, USA’! I’ll tell them about Salim eventually, you know..”  
Mattie could fill in the rest: after Salim had proposed. He didn’t know how likely that was, but Noor was convinced. She didn’t see the Salim who whose most prized possessions were Offwhite sunshades and a Samsung phone, whose grand ambition was to be a successful DJ. When you love someone, their greatness is easily apparent and limitless, and their flaws are much smaller than they appear to others. Thinking about his friends, and planning to meet up with them, at the familiar Regal Cinema at the mall where he worked, made Mattie feel more grounded. He could forget about Ishtar, and the wriggling doubts crawling in the back of his mind, for a little while.


	6. Chapter 6

“Don’t forget to tell them about the mailing list. Its how we let the customers know about sales,” Adara said.  
“Okay,” Noor said.   
Whenever her sister gave her an order or instruction at work, she just said ‘Okay’ to make things go smoother. Adara was standing behind Noor, who was standing at the jewelry counter. Bulky silver and gold chains and watches sat on displays with a velvety black texture. Adara wore a professional looking black ensemble, her glossy dark brown hair tumbling over her shoulders. Adara had a thin neck and a sharp chin, but her skin was a few shades lighter than Noor’s, and her eyes were intelligent and seemed to see everything.   
“You didn’t tell the last guy about the mailing list. You have to remind everyone,” Adara said.  
“I said okay!” Noor said, and tried hard not to raise her voice or let a peevish whine slip into her voice. She couldn’t act any less than professional on the salesfloor of their family’s jewelry store.   
But, Noor was starting to feel unfairly pushed around by her mother and older sister. Her father wasn’t very hands on. Her parents had her and Adara later in life, and her father more traditional and aloof. Her mother ordered her about at home, then Adara did so at work. Noor could never seem to be tidy, quiet, hardworking, or attentive enough for either of them. She couldn’t wait to escape the jewelry store, Adara’s perpetually scrutinizing expression, and hang out with Salim and Mattie. With them, she could laugh and be her silly fangirl self, going on about “Vampireville, USA” or the Mortal Instruments novels. Admittedly, Salim didn’t care so much about the latter, but Mattie had a sister and this qualified him to at least nod along whenever she brought up a YA paranormal novel. He could hang. That was all she needed. Someone to listen. It was better than not feeling good enough, the way she did around the hard stars in her mother’s and sister’s eyes, and their disappointed glares whenever she failed to make a sale at the store, bumped into or forgot something.   
When it was time for her shift to end, she reminded Adara, who pointedly acted like she didn’t care, like she was even relieved to have the store to herself until the mall closed.   
“I’m meeting Amanda at the movies,” Noor said.  
Adara’s eyebrows said, ‘Okay…do I care?’  
Amanda was Noor’s de facto best friend in high school. They sometimes met up for movies or Starboard coffee, but those occasions had become fewer and farther between as they settled into post-high school life. Being best friends in school had seemed effortless. Even though Noor wore a hijab and modest clothing, obvious markers that she was a practicing Muslim surrounded by mostly Baptist and Methodist southern Christians, they had the important things in common: books, feeling out of place, taking their studies seriously. She had been looking forward to seeing Amanda more, not less, after school ended, since Noor’s parents didn’t allow her to go to parties or sleepovers in school. She could do what she wanted, now, as long as she was just hanging out with a female friend.  
If her mother knew she was actually going to the movies with two boys, her eyebrows would be just as communicative as Adara’s, and they wouldn’t be saying anything kind. Noor felt self-conscious as she walked by the familiar tshirt shops and cell phone kiosks of the mall. She was convinced that someone around her could tell she had a secret, but of course they were the typical throng of strangers-soldiers from the nearby base wearing big, sand colored backpacks and traveling in groups because they shared a cab; teens on dates; Goths, punks, sneakerheads, otakus. The mall was much like the halls of a high school, except for the power-walking elderly people and the fact that instead of looking at each other with judgement, dismissal, and the contempt of familiarity, no one was looking at each other at all. They were already gazing in the direction of what they wanted to buy.  
Still, apart of her always tensed in a crowd, wondering if someone would molest her hijab, or acknowledge her in some kind of aggressive way for it. Virginia was a low-key state, more diverse than one would expect, and the state’s character was a colonial hangover, a certain distinctly English refusal to display strong emotions, either affection or antipathy, with any excess of feeling. People passed like ships in the night, occasionally pausing to make small talk about the temperature. She’d never heard of any hate crimes occurring anywhere near where she lived. But, walking alone still made her feel somewhat vulnerable, in a fluid and fleeting way. 

She was relieved when she spotted Mattie and Salim by the Thai Ice Cream place. They both waved her over. Mattie chastely hugged her around the shoulder, like a brother, but she took more care greeting Salim, because she was interested in him romantically. Being a hijabi did come with a certain personal vow of public decorum. But, these things made her feel more focused and peaceful.   
“Watch,” Mattie said enthusiastically.   
He was so puppyishly happy as he watched the ice cream maker behind the counter, a young Thai man, roll the ice cream into a flat sheet like pancake or pizza dough, and then scrape it into crepe-like rolls. Noor smiled, mesmerized. She knew she had been worried, even briefly, for nothing. Despite how annoying it was to work with her sister, she mostly felt happy at the mall. When her parents first opened the jewelry store, when she was a little girl, the mall seemed like a magical place. She loved its attractions, like the fountains and carousel of painted horses, and the live palm trees planted in the pebble covered sand, fed by sun from the skylight. Those marvels were gone, but there were still little treasures like the music and DVD store that sold Japanese candy, the quartz and amethyst crystals smoldering beneath the dark party lights of the novelty shop, the mannequins clothed in overpriced but joyfully patterned African tribal prints in front of the imports shop. The joys were smaller, but still magical.

As Noor and Mattie watched their ice cream being prepared, she looked over and noticed that Salim’s dark eyes were glued to the screen of his phone. Was that really how guys normally acted on a date? Was this a date if Mattie was there, too? She wished she could ask a friend, or her sister, if this was behavior to be concerned about, from a guy. From a maybe-almost-secret boyfriend. She doubted she could run that sort of thing by Mattie, even if he did watch “Shadowhunters” and “Vampireville, USA” with her on her phone. Sometimes, a girl needed to talk to another girl, but Noor didn’t seem to have anyone like that to talk these things over with.

 

Salim seemed distracted. Mattie could tell, and he could tell that Noor did, too. Maybe he thought it was ridiculous that they were still going out in groups of friends instead of alone as a couple, and that she still hadn’t told her family she had a boyfriend. Acting distant could be how he was lashing out at her. Mattie had welcomed the distraction when Noor called him, but now he felt slightly awkward in the middle of the tension between them. Especially since Noor seemed taken off guard, too.   
Luckily, the movie was loud. Lots of special effects and teenagers trying to save the world in a dystopian future. Noor had read the book series the movie was adapted from, of course.   
“So, the guy with the square jaw, he’s the one she’s in love with?” Mattie said.  
“No! That’s her brother!” Noor laughed.  
“Oh…but, isn’t she in love with two guys?” Mattie asked.  
“Yeah-the one with the British accent, who won’t tell anyone his real name, and the one who’s British but doing an American accent, and acts like he doesn’t like her,” Noor said.  
The former looked about 30, but weren’t all actors who played teens actually 30? It must be a union regulation of some sort. As for the latter, that truly mutinous leer he had been doing for the duration of the movie must have actually been sex appeal. Mattie decided that the main character had better focus on saving the world of the future from a dictator, her love life wasn’t so hot.   
“I dunno, neither of them is my type,” Mattie whispered into Noor’s ear.  
“What’s your type?” Noor said. Mattie was surprised that she didn’t seem shocked. Telling someone, even hinting that he wasn’t heterosexual was always a risk, a moment of emotional nudity. Noor didn’t seem surprised or disapproving in any way.  
Mattie thought about Misha. He had the perfect ballet dancer’s body, so strong and honed by practice and dedication to his craft. Mattie thought of the way Misha’s sweat pants hugged his taut ass. Then, there was Tristen. First, he’d seen him online, and then in person. While he was open and sensual in his video, he seemed more guarded IRL. Mattie attributed that to work-place territorialism. He hadn’t had much time to fantasize about Tristen and form an idea of who he thought he was, so it wasn’t exactly a case of ‘you should never meet your heroes’. And, sadly, Mattie was too used to being dismissed from his ballet days to take it personally whenever someone didn’t seem to find him important.   
That’s what he told himself….but he felt a yearning ache in his chest when he thought about Tristen. Mattie still thought of him as beautiful and interesting, even though he had been a little cold. Despite that, he still thought about the way Tristen’s moans had filled the empty air in his room as the video on Ishtar.com played.  
“I’m still figuring it out. I mean, I haven’t met anyone, but….yeah. I think I could like girls, but…I like guys, too,” Mattie said.  
“Wow-I had no idea, Mattie. I’m glad you trust me enough to tell me,” Noor said. She added, “Salim, did you know?”   
Mattie and Noor looked over-Salim was gone. Noor looked at Mattie with a puzzled expression. This was getting more complicated than he had planned on, or it was nothing, Mattie couldn’t tell.  
“I’ll see if he’s in the men’s room,” Mattie said. The movie wasn’t bad, but he felt like he had seen it before, and didn’t mind missing a few minutes.  
He left the theater, and found Salim on his phone by the exit at the end of the corridor.  
“Hey, what’s up. You’ve been acting off all night. If you’re not into Noor, I think you should man up and tell her. She’s really cool,” Mattie said.  
“Chill. I’m lining something up,” Salim said.  
“Huh? You’ve been texting your weed guy all night?” Mattie asked.  
“What? No. This….party planning agency. They do pop up events in different super secret locations,” Salim said.  
“Oh! You’re going to DJ for them?” Mattie asked.  
“Possibly. Like I said, I’m kind of lining something up over here. I didn’t want to cancel with Noor. I didn’t think I’d be so distracted,” Salim said.  
Mattie was relieved that it was a work thing, and not some other girl, or a cruel ploy to make Noor pissed at him so she would be the one to break it off and his conscience was clear.   
“Why don’t you put off the next text for at least until the movie’s over? Noor thinks you’re acting weird,” Mattie said.   
Ironically, his text alert went off. Digital communication was Hell on face to face encounters-everyone was always getting interrupted by someone unseen.  
“You were saying?” Salim said.  
Mattie grimaced sheepishly, and looked down at his phone. It was Alexa, and the text read,   
“Got your results-are you ready to film tomorrow?”

Mattie felt breathless for a few seconds, and had to hide it. Tomorrow? His life as a porn star was about to start, in just a few hours. He swallowed, and texted,   
“Sure!”  
He’d signed up. He needed the money. Why not? Bonzai!  
Alexa texted back, “Great! I’m emailing you some information about hygiene. Read over it before you come in.”  
He asked what time. He didn’t have class or Perfume Kingdom, so he would be free all day. He decided he would take his own advice, and answer that text after the movie. Back in the theater, Noor was waiting for them, framed by empty seats. On the screen, a group of teenagers (played by actors in their late 20s) were tasked with saving the world. Noor watched, enrapt, while Mattie absorbed the fact that in less than twelve hours he would be losing his virginity on a porn set. He couldn’t help but wonder if Tristen Ludlowe would be his partner. 

As Mattie, Noor, and Salim were heading out of the theater, he received another text. It was Celine, this time. She was having an impromptu welcome home party for some dancer friends of her’s, who had been doing a cultural exchange trip in China. Some of these dancers had been their classmates at the school where they grew up attending classes, so Mattie figured he would pop in and say hi. It had been nearly three years, he could brave the concerned questions, and the way the conversation died pitifully when he said that he painted now, rather than dancing. He knew how he must sound, to the person who had asked-like some kind of pitiable recluse, who painted the days away  
But, despite the stirrings of regret and wistful hope he had felt when talking to Professor Alcazar, dancing was behind him, and that was that. Mattie could accept reality. He could see some old friends without feeling badly about himself. Noor headed back to the jewelry store, to meet up with her sister and head home. Salim and Mattie walked to the parking lot.  
“Thanks,” Salim said, for earlier. Mattie nodded his thanks, and Salim shut his car door and drove away. The trees between the parking lot and the highway were dark silhouette against the winter night and its weak stars.

When Mattie arrived at his sister’s apartment, she and her friends were casually lounging on the couch. There was busy, infectious, overproduced pop music on, but they weren’t dancing. Fair enough, as that is what they spent most of their lives doing. Celine’s friends, Yasmin and Chloe, rushed over to greet him with hugs and kisses. They still thought of him as everybody’s little brother. Mattie found that his part of the conversation was very easy-he needed only to be attentive as the girls bombarded him with stories and pictures on their cell phones. The Great Wall! The Forbidden City! They’d been proper tourists, in the name of international artistic discourse. While listening, ‘oohing’ and ‘aweing’ was quite a simple task, there was still a little kernel of dread in Mattie’s belly-would they ask if he was rehabbing his ankle, what his timeframe of recovery was, and if he planned to audition for ballet companies once he was well? An absence following an injury was assumed to be temporary.   
He was relieved when the talk turned to ‘Giselle’ rehearsals. Mattie scanned the room. A thrill ran down his back and he averted his eyes when he saw that the boy from Celine’s class at the city ballet, Misha, the Russian dancer, was there. He and a smallboned brunette girl were having a conversation in low voices in what sounded like their native language. The flow of unfamiliar words sounded very intimate, and Mattie felt as if he should look away, felt like an invisible force-field of privacy was between them and the other people in the room. He felt inexplicably embarrassed for trying to penetrate it, even for a moment.   
“Do you want to be introduced?” Yasmin asked.  
“Huh?” Mattie said.  
Chloe was smirking at him, too.  
“We saw that look you gave Mikhail,” Yasmin said. “Go talk to him!”  
With her characteristic blunt truthfulness, Celine said, “What would be the point in getting to know him, for Matthieu to fall in love with him? He’s not staying.”  
Mattie said nothing. Yasmin and Chloe broke into raptures over the roles they had seen him in-his Albrecht, his Desiree, his Siegfried. Their somewhat embarrassed laughter told it all-that they dreamed of his firm hand on their waists, their thighs, lifting and positioning them in the ersatz passion of the pas de deux, a dance between a male and a female ballet dancer. Mattie thought of the well-honed musculature of Misha’s body in class, misted with sweat, and the taut swell of his buttocks in sweat pants.   
“Mattie, can you get some more wine?” Celine asked.  
He went to the kitchen. He had been so busy fantasizing about Misha in class, he hadn’t noticed him leave the room and go to the kitchen. Mattie found himself alone with Misha.  
“How did you hurt your ankle?” Misha asked.  
“My ankle?” Mattie said stupidly, as if he had forgotten.  
“You limp,” Misha said.   
Mattie loved the deep, masculine timbre of his voice, and the way his accent curved his words, as if they quite suddenly fell off a cliff. Snow swirling to the pavement of the Red Square, remote, fragrant forests populated by the same lore Tchaikovsky drew on in his fantastical ballets, of talking wolves that come to the aid of tsareviches on magical quests, rusalkas and ghosts of the deep snows, golden Orthodox icons-Misha’s voice conjured all the history and enchantment that, being a child of the ballet, Mattie associated with Russia.  
What was the point of falling for someone who wasn’t going to stay?  
Mattie couldn’t help himself.  
“I used to dance, but I hurt myself. I was going to audition for a summer program at the Paris Opera Ballet…I was practicing, and I hurt my ankle,” Mattie found himself saying. The words spilled out of him, and he wasn’t sure if they had come out in the right order.  
“Paris…” Misha said wistfully. They had the same dreams. Their dreams breathed together.  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t go. Because…my ankle,” Mattie said.  
“Does it hurt?” Misha asked. Mattie couldn’t tell if he meant not going to Paris, or his ankle. About the latter, he hated to answer, ‘Yes’. Dancers didn’t admit to pain, they lived through it. But, his ankle was a little sore.  
“Sit,” Misha said.   
Mattie did so, pulling out one of Celine’s chairs. Misha sat on the floor in front of him, and gently took Mattie’s ankle in his hands. Mattie’s skin felt sensitive, almost to the point of tickling. Misha pressed with his thumb, and turned slightly, and Mattie felt his ankle pop. Tension he wasn’t aware that he had been carrying vacated his ankle, and it felt loose and free again.  
Mattie smiled. Misha’s face was soft with gladness.  
“Mattie, what happened to the wine?” Celine called, from the living room. Misha stroked Mattie’s ankle with the tip of his thumb as he released Mattie’s foot from his hands.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahead of filming with Mattie, Albie meditates for clarity; Mattie thinks of Albie the night before they film together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a flareup of acute sinusitis. Its not the worst as far as chronic inflammatory conditions go, but one day I hope I can write something that will raise awareness about just how gnarly it can be: joint pain, headaches, fatigue, it can be quite incapacitating. However, I did manage to write a little this week! Thanks, everyone, for embracing this hybrid fanwork version of the story. The characters have original names, but if it were a movie, Armie and Timmy would be my dream casting choices for these two. This is the last chapter before they film together for Ishtar for the first time, and I hope the mounting tension is palpable. Thanks, everyone! Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!

Outside the window, the leaves of immortal magnolias, dark and shiny like enameled jewels, swayed in the wet winter wind. The days between Christmas and Valentine’s Day were gray, wet, bleak, and the dark leaves stood out sharply against the pearl gray sky. Weak winter light flowed weakly into the loft, casting a thin shadow of Alexa’s bonsai tree. She and Albie sat on the floor.  
“Imagine that you’re naked,” she said. Both their eyes were closed.  
“In our line of work…wouldn’t that be considered overtime?” he said.  
“Imagine,” she said, a soft command.  
“Okay, I’m imagining,” Albie relented.  
“You’re naked, and you wade into a cold mountain stream. The water is shockingly cold, and your skin rebels, at first, you want to run back to the water’s edge,” she said. “Then, you give in. Your skin relaxes to the water’s touch. It’s like when someone runs the edge of a knife along your skin. Its cold, but it doesn’t hurt. Imagine, the water purifies you. It washes the residue of the world away.”  
Albie tried.  
It was hard, at first, to picture the scene that Alexa was describing. Albie focused on his breathing. The simplest of mantras to remember was: 'I breathe in as I breathe in, I breathe out as I breathe out.' He breathed in, and out, and began to feel calm and peaceful. His whole body was warm, and his mind felt receptive rather than frenzied with involuntary thoughts- memories, things he was trying to remember but had half forgotten, things to do later that day, the kind of stray facts that Google was often utizlied to confirm, and the minutiae of the body like small reoccurring discomforts or the itch of air on the skin. 

Those thoughts and sensations could so easily feel like little anchors pulling at the mind. Too many anchors, too many pulls in too many directions, and the pursuit even of what one most desired was exhausting and felt like a burden. Albie's only thought was the simple acknowledgement that he was breathing. It brought him back in touch with his body. 

Only the present moment was ever real. The past most certainly happened, but it was a moment that had ended. The future, for all it was planned for or feared, was reached one moment at a time. As for flights of imagination, such as the visualization Alexa was asking of him, they were symbolic, of the things we were able to let go or receive when our mind clears. 

The words, 'I breathe in as I breathe out' seemed superfluous, and the visualization began to feel almost real. The silken, flowing, cold water against his skin. It didn't seem impossible that his soul could be renewed, redeemed, purified. Not in the sense of cleansing him of sins- he no longer thought that way. But if he could one day leave his pain behind and live without feeling emotionally scarred. Rather than good and evil, meditation taught him to see life as a pursuit of peace, and peace as an attainable goal. He just wasn't totally there, yet. 

Albie opened his eyes when a recording of a gong chimed from Alexa's phone. 

"Look at your face," she said fondly. 

Albie smiled sleepily. She seemed pleased and proud of him, and this made him happy. He felt he should thank her, but still didn't feel the need for words. It was a nice feeling. Talking was difficult for so many people- they struggled to seem charming, amusing, impressive, and special, but if that was effort was visible and obvious, it earned scorn rather than the desired human connection. To go beyond words was to reach a place beyond effort, closer to peace. 

"Are we filming tomorrow?" Albie asked. 

"You are, with Matthieu- but, first I want him to watch, and get a feel for things," Alexa said. 

"So that if he changes his mind….?" Albie said. 

"He's always free to do that. But if he had been only mildly curious, he wouldn't have pursued this even this far," Alexa said. "I'll be honest with you, Albie- I think you two will be beautiful together."

He'd thought about it, too. 

Alexa noticed the wistful look on Albie's face, and smiled. 

"I want to create art with you two," She said. "I think exploring what’s between you two has the potential to be beautiful." 

She was the Mistress, so Albie agreed, but it was more than that. He had first seen Mattie in the coffeeshop, and he looked cute, beautiful even, but untouchable. Too sweet, too normal, Albie felt he should leave him alone because his life was too complicated. Now, there was no avoiding Matthieu. Every second that passed was bringing them closer.

 

 

Mattie went home, after the movie. The loft was cold. He curled up under the covers in bed, and it soon became clear that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. His mom had advised him more than once to take melatonin, but he always forgot to buy the vitamin. He could surf the internet until he felt tired, but that was the absolute worst way to fall asleep-digital light actually kept the body stimulated and awake. Even so, Mattie reached for his phone, and pulled it off the charger. He went to Ishtar.com, and typed in ‘Tristen Ludlowe’. The search engine quickly retrieved the results: Tristen in flagrante delicto with various partners, of various genders, ethnicities, and body types. How did he want Tristen, was the question?  
With his full pink lips poised at the dripping head of another man’s cock?  
With a svelte brunette with angel wings tattooed on her back sitting on his lap, her hand in his rusty gold chest hair?  
In a Bacchanalian tangle of bodies in an orgy scene?

In every clip, no matter who his partner was, or partners were, Tristen had a look of bliss on his face that couldn’t be fake. His fingers tingled, feeling electric, eager to push a button and watch Tristan’s body blush as he made love to his partner, to hear his deepthroated moans fill his room again. Mattie selected the solo that he had watched last time, and closed his eyes as he mimicked Tristen’s touch. His voice was so near, it was like they were side by side on Mattie’s slightly cold bed. He wriggled out of his pants and boxers, and as the liquid, lashing heat built in his face and his spine, guided the undulations of his hips as he thrust into the embrace of his hand, Mattie reveled in the feeling of the sheets beneath his naked body. The air and the cotton caressed him as he wished Tristen was there to do. He felt free, but slightly lonely, extremely aroused, but also beseeching. As his orgasm abruptly ambushed him, a punch of sensation that seemed to radiate from his navel outwards, he felt like the warmth in his chest was a pulsing star, signalling to someone else. The feeling passed, and he tumbled into a cushiony feeling of exhaustion, and felt his own sweat and the sheets that were damp with it. With his phone beside him, Mattie fell asleep.

The next morning, Mattie woke up to a gray late winter sky. He showered, threw on jeans, a hoodie, and a denim jacket, and went to the office space loft that housed Ishtar. Trance hip hop played in the empty lobby. Ishtar was on the second level, just up the iron stairs that led to a gallery overlooking the first floor. He took a deep breath before knocking on the door of Alexa’s office. Partly because knocking on any authority figure’s office door was always fraught, and because there was now officially, no turning back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos, please! Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo! Be kind, always:)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie's questions are answered, he meets "Tristen" again, and they share their first kiss as their first scene begins....

Joey opened the door, but didn’t greet Mattie. They looked distracted, and quickly went back to their seat on an inflatable chair, pulling their laptop onto Their lap and burrowing into Their gray hoodie. Mattie didn’t take it personal. Most people preferred the company of machines to people, but Joey seemed to be immersed in an act of creativity. He was used to the aloof focus of ballerinas, as well. Alexa was seated behind the desk, wearing black and an enigmatic but welcoming smile. This was encouraging-for some reason, Mattie was always afraid that he would be forgotten. 

“Hello, Matthieu. Ready for today?” she asked.  
A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed. It wasn’t like he would be bagging groceries, making coffee, or any of the other just-above-minimum wage jobs that people his age coasted in to afford college. This would be sex, with a near stranger. Tristen’s presence on his laptop screen, and his wordless utterances of bliss pouring from the speakers had an effect on him, but they had only met briefly once. However, he said, enthusiastically,  
“Yeah, totally ready, I’m excited,” because there didn’t seem to be too much else to say.  
Joey looked up from Their laptop, and shot Alexa an eyeroll. Mattie felt a lance of fear strike his stomach-what had he said, or done? What was wrong?  
Alexa pointedly ignored Joey’s look, looking extra content and serene to make a point.

“Good. We’re glad you committed to this. Tristen is really excited to film with you, too. There’s just one thing we have to clear up before we leave,” Alexa said.

“Oh, sure,” Mattie said. He knew he sounded like a compliant and amenable puppy, but it was how he always approached new environments-afraid to ask any questions, and eager to be liked. 

“What would you like to be called?” Alexa asked.

“Um….Matt, Mattie, Matthieu, whatever,” he said. “Whatever is fine.”

“You want to be called Whatever? Very avant garde,” Joey said.

Once again, Mattie got the impression that They didn’t like him very much, and wanted him to know it.

Alexa smiled wickedly, and said, “Not your real name, your Nom de Porn.”

This made Mattie actually laugh, and he felt slightly more comfortable. 

“Oh! Yeah….I should have thought of one. Isn’t it supposed to be, like, the street you lived on when you were a kid, and the name of your first pet?” Mattie asked. 

“There’s no formula-but make it tasteful,” Alexa said. 

“Any fictional character who’s not Harry Potter would be cool. Although there’s tons of Harry Potter themed porn,” Joey said.

“That’s disturbing,” Mattie said.  
They didn’t laugh. It was hard to know where he stood with Them, but that was life. Nothing, not even Nutella, was universally loved. 

Even though Joey didn’t seem to like him very much, he thought about their suggestion. What fictional character would make a suitable Nom de Porn? Tristen had chosen Tristan Ludlow from The Legends of the Fall. Maybe someday he would tell Mattie why he’d done so. Names scrolled through his head.

Holden Caulfield? Too moody.

Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower didn’t have a last name.

Harry Potter had been ruled out.

Chris Chambers? Nah, Mattie just wasn’t that cool. Not Chris Chambers cool. 

“Peter Parker?” he said. 

Joey laughed. “So, does that make you Our Friendly Neighborhood Porn Star, Spidey?”  
Mattie wasn’t sure if he should join in and make it a ‘You got me!’ moment, or if there was something going on here that he needed to be concerned about. His medical tests had been clean (of course, since he’d never had sex), his background check certainly had been as well, unless he was flagged for walking away with ink pens from banks, and occasionally littering. What was Joey’s deal?

“How about Pete Parker?” Alexa suggested. 

“That’s fine,” Mattie said. 

“Pete,” Alexa said, trying the name out and sounding satisfied. “Come with me.”

Alexa and Mattie left the office. She’d mentioned that they were leaving the office space. He wondered where they were going. As they boarded the elevator, Mattie asked,

“Why doesn’t Joey like me?”

Alexa sighed, and said, “Its not you, exactly. They were skeptical about hiring you.”

“Oh. Because I don’t have any experience?” Mattie laughed. 

One of those catch 22s, he figured, like being denied credit for insufficient credit history, or not being considered for a promotion because of a lack of management experience. He hadn’t expected that about adult life. He assumed that it was more like a pageant of roles. First, you were a beginner, then you learned a bit and earned more responsibility, but also more compensation. Then, eventually, you were the person out in front, teaching and leading others, until you retired, after a job well done. Things weren’t quite that way, maybe not anymore, maybe they just never had been. The hidden costs of being a beginner in life were what had brought him to Ishtar in the first place.

“Not exactly. Its….the way you look. A bit younger than your age,” Alexa said. “Sort of girlish. I hope this doesn’t offend you.”

“I’m used to it. I didn’t have the muscle for ballet, either,” he said.

Alexa’s interest was piqued. “Oh, you were a ballet dancer? I love ballet.”

“What’s your favourite ballet?” Mattie asked.

“ ‘Romeo and Juliet’,” she answered, with a dreamy smile that Mattie wouldn’t have expected of a dominatrix. She continued, “you stood out to me. I see a lot of a certain type. You were different. Different is inspiring.”

“I don’t think its fair that Joey feels that way, and I don’t like the way They express it, but I’m glad you gave me a chance, anyway. I don’t know what the usual porn type is. I don’t know very much about all this, at all,” Mattie said.

“Then I don’t have to deal with any preconceived notions and stylistic tics. Some performers, who used to make more mainstream material, find it hard to understand our directive, here. We’re looking for something real. None of those fake sighs and pulling faces at the camera, and faking it. I’m interested in how real it can get, between two people in a scene,” Alexa said.

“I’m…open to that,” Mattie said.

“Receptivity is good. A state of receptivity is where all creative endeavors begin. You’ve probably heard people talk about manifesting what they want into their life. That seems to be quite popular. But, we have to be able to receive, as well,” Alexa said.

Mattie found himself agreeing wholeheartedly. Alexa’s voice calmed him and pulled him in, like listening to ocean waves, or a waterfall. Her arm brushed his as they stood side be side, and he wasn’t unaffected. 

The elevator opened, and a girl with ruby red hair and colorful 1940s sailor tattoos on her legs, wearing a Sailor Scout type schoolgirl uniform greeted them with an enthusiastic wave. 

“Hi, you must be Matthieu!” she said.

“Its Pete, from now on,” Alexa corrected her. 

“Your Nom de Porn is Pete?” said the redhead bemusedly.

“Pete Parker. Like Spiderman, but not like Spiderman, I guess for copyright reasons,” Mattie said.

“Your Friendly Neighborhood Porn Star, huh?” said the girl, as Mattie looked at her tattoos. 

“Joey beat you to that one,” Alexa said. “Pete, this is Nathalie. She’s going to be your guide, since I’ll be busy setting up, when we arrive at the location. Any questions or concerns you have, she’ll be more than happy to answer. Anything you need, don’t hesitate to tell her.”

“Its great to meet you,” Mattie said.

“Thanks! How old are you, anyway? Sorry, just curious,” Nathalie said.

“21. I know, I look younger. I’ve been hearing it since junior high,” Mattie said, hoping that Nathalie wasn’t going to shun him for it, like Joey.

“Its okay-you look androgynous. Women love that kind of thing, on so many levels,” Nathalie said. “And, we cater to women.”

They stepped out into the parking lot as Alexa took a call and disengaged her attention from them. 

“Right-feminist porn. I admit, I hadn’t heard of that kind of thing before. I mean, when my mom talks about feminism, she means, like, voting,” Mattie said.  
They walked across the crunchy blue gravel.

“Feminism is a term that gets used kind of loosely. I guess if I had to sum it up or define it, it would be as an ideological stance with a definite aim. Feminists believe that women have equal intrinsic value as human beings to men, and deserve equal representation in access education, legal rights, career opportunity, and how the standards of these institutions are applied to them, and feminism seeks to make this a reality,” Nathalie said. 

“So, how can porn be feminist?” Mattie asked. 

“Well, for one thing, we try to create a safe and empowered environment, but also we take into consideration what appeals to women. Women have different physiological triggers than men, and they’ve also been conditioned differently. That means that, because of a combination of nature and nurture, they’re aroused by different stimuli in a different way than men, in some cases. I think Alexa picked you because you do have a certain androgyny, and a lot of women feel safer fantasizing about androgynous figures than men with a traditional image of macho virility,” Nathalie said.

“Why’s that?” Mattie said, as he processed being called ‘androgynous’. Was he cool with that? He was thin, and his hair was longish, and he and his sister had the same facial features…did that make him androgynous?

“A lot of reasons. Maybe the traditionally macho guy triggers bad associations they have where men have conflated force and sexuality. You look gentle. Gentleness can be seductive,” Nathalie said. “Get in the car. I can’t wait for you to see where you’re filming. Do you know who your scene is with?”

“Tristen. I’ve watched a couple of his videos, and we kind of met, once,” Mattie said.  
They got in the car, Nathalie in the driver’s seat. 

“He’s Alexa’s. Just a heads up,” Nathalie said, as the car left the gravelly parking lot and passed the cafes, antique shops, spas, Yoga studios, vintage stores and international cuisine spots that made Mattie’s neighborhood cool and eclectic, on the one hand, but seemed like a Hipster Candyland that was getting harder to afford, on the other.

“What do you mean?” Mattie asked.

“Well, I’m sure you noticed her whole Lady Gaga Bad Romance era schtick,” Nathalie said. “Well, its not a schtick. She’s a dominatrix. Like, 24/7, 365, it’s a lifestyle.”

 

“I sort of gathered that,” Mattie said. 

“And Tristen is her slave,” Nathalie said.  
Slave.  
That was one Hell of a loaded word, in the U.S. It couldn’t help but evoke black and white photographs of African Americans in the nineteenth century, tilling fields with mournful but resolved gazes. Slavery, in the U.S., was a matter of ethnicity, at one time. It wasn’t a sexy word, it smacked of a sad history that still triggered resentments, trauma, and violence. Slaves had no rights, no voices, no freedom, their bodies were property and their souls were denied to exist at all. Mattie got the feeling that Nathalie didn’t mean it metaphorically, in the Britney Spears with a python sense, nor in the sense of slavery before 1865, of course. The word had a secret double meaning at Ishtar, and he was about to learn it. It was another step into the labyrinth, like picking a name.

“I know, it sounds awful. But, sexual slavery is voluntary and pleasurable for both sides. Some people get off on complete surrender, not just in a scene but in being ordered around, serving another person completely. They agree to it. Anyway, Tristen is Alexa’s personal slave,” Nathalie said. “Just so you know. So that you don’t get….attached, when you two film. A lot of people have tried.”  
“I know how to be professional. Ballet dancers have to kiss and stuff all the time, like actors,” Mattie said  
“Oh, you’re a dancer?” Nathalie said.  
“I was,” Mattie said. “I don’t get it-why would someone want to be a slave? How does that work?”  
Nathalie smiled hungrily, as if she knew Mattie was going to ask, and couldn’t wait to enlighten him.  
“Sexual slavery is submission at its deepest, and domination at its most devoted,” Nathalie said. “In a scene, the Dom has been given control of the sub’s body and, to some extent, their mind. But the Master has so much more than that in their hand’s. They possess their slave’s time, their emotions, their secrets, their fears, their hopes. Its intense.”  
“It sounds….like being kidnapped and held hostage,” Mattie said.  
Nathalie had left Mattie’s neighborhood behind, and they were now in one of the city’s older residential neighborhoods, of picturesque Victorian houses on streets lined with magnolias and leafless, spindly crepe myrtles.  
Nathalie laughed. “I told you, its all totally consensual. You agree to give up that much of yourself to someone who can make you better.”

“Better?” Mattie asked.

“Being dominated clears and focuses the sub’s mind, makes them feel loved. By the time you find the person you’re willing to give up that much of yourself to, its like Sayuri told the Chairman in Memoirs of A Geisha: every step you’ve taken in your life has been to bring you closer to them,” Nathalie said. “Being fulfilled always makes us better, doesn’t it?”

Mattie wasn’t sure what to say. He had been a dancer since he was five or six, and he wasn’t one anymore, but he still thought like one. The great composers had written the scores. The choreographers had written the steps, centuries ago when ballerinas still performed for royalty. The ballerinas themselves had left their mark on certain roles and how they were performed, and dance teachers strove to pass all this on. Still, perfection could only come from each individual dancer’s effort to master this long, revered legacy in their own way. Was that fulfillment? It was, as Mattie knew it, and that could never come from someone else.  
But, he understood what Nathalie meant. If you had a host of specific, secret desires that could only be realized with another person, of course you would yearn for them every day of your life until you met them. Nothing else could compare, if there was nothing else close. 

She learned people quickly, or, as Mattie had been told many times, all his emotions were plain on his face. Either way, Nathalie knew to take his thoughtful silence for an answer.  
“It’s the word, slave, that throws you off, right? You’re going to hear a lot of coded language at Ishtar, Pete. But, you have to understand, that its all coming from a place of love. When you see a sub or a slave say Master or Mistress, just know that they’re feeling love and reverence beyond what you would feel for a parent, or a teacher, or a spouse. It’s a deep love, a really deep bond,” Nathalie. “Slave means, ‘I belong to you’. Master means, ‘You belong to me.’ You’d be surprised, but Dommes are sometimes people who grew up being taught to be people pleasers.”

“And decided never to go back?” Mattie said.  
Nathalie gave him a chagrinned, big sisterly look, glancing away from the road, momentarily. The houses looked every bit as stately, but newer, now. Brick houses with Hellenistic column facades, or fake Georgians and Tudors trying to capture the state’s colonial English past. What Mattie’s mother and her friends would cacklingly appraise as “Mc Mansions”. 

“They’re used to the pressure to handle stress with poise. The straight A students of doting but demanding parents, the top of the class success stories that hit the news in fluff pieces every June for landing multiple scholarships, athletes, dancers. Maybe they turn to dungeon work to pay the bills at first, but then they realize that they’re having fun, finding a voice, and that skill they have for pleasing others can be creative and nurturing. What could be more satisfying than realizing a fantasy someone else has been carrying in their heart and their mind since puberty? That’s a very specialized ability, and the Dom derives joy from it too,” Nathalie said. “It’s a profession that requires commitment and generosity. Dominants aren’t amoral or sociopathic.”

“So, Doms are typically people who are really giving in nature, while subs are people who….take?” Mattie asked.  
Nathalie laughed, and Mattie realized the double meaning that sentence could have. He blushed.  
“Being submissive and being a slave are different. A slave is submissive, not all submissives are slaves. Got it?” Nathalie said.  
A sunbaked stone statue of a goddess stood on a verdant lawn outside one of the Mc Mansions. It looked like a relic from Ancient Rome, dredged from the Mediterranean’s cerulean waters.  
“Got it,” Mattie echoed.  
“Its different for everyone. Maybe they crave a deeper level of submission, and a full time Dom, instead of just sceneing at events, clubs, with different Doms, or whenever their Dom has time. Its like any relationship-their’s casual, one night things, or monogamy. Or, they have something they want to work on. Their Masters can set goals for them to do with something they are working on in their lives, like losing weight or going back to school, and punish them if they don’t meet them,” Nathalie explained.  
“That’s one way to keep yourself honest,” Mattie said.  
“You want to know why Tristen needs a Master, and why he would want to be a slave, right? A big, strapping blonde side of All American beef like that, who looks like a cowboy from an old movie?” Nathalie said.  
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Mattie said, as the reflections of leafless trees faded from the windshield and they emerged on a rural road between brown, shorn pastures. Mattie had no idea where they were going, and he had asked so many questions about Tristen he had forgotten to ask Nathalie what their destination was. 

His unspoken question was answered when they approached a Tudor house surrounded by oaks. Beside the house there was a dogwood grove, and a dully glistening scrim of water shone through the leafless trees. Mattie knew before Nathalie turned onto the drive that this was it. Somehow, he knew. The leafless trees’ thick limbs bent and reached at angles that reminded him of paintings he’d seen in museums and art textbooks of Hindu gods at war, battling demons to save humanity. Their arms threw reflections and shadow on the windshield of Nathalie’s car.

 

Albie heard a car. They were on the first floor, so more noise penetrated the walls of the Tudor house than if they were upstairs. The sound of wheels over gravel was somehow in the distance and distinct and sharp all at the same time. Losing one sense truly did seem to cause those remaining to overcompensate. He was blindfolded, and his other senses had caught up, becoming more intense.  
He tasted the mint of his gum, its minty bite and syrupy artificial sugar, in his saliva. He could feel the velvet of the blindfold mildly irritating his skin, making tiny itches bloom on his face that he was forbidden to scratch. The carpet on which he knelt soft when one was walking across it, but he could feel it burning his knees and the palms of his hands. His body was uncomfortable in so many small ways. Tension was gathering, demanding the relief of some small movement. His mind was screaming to move on to some amusement or preoccupation, too. Kneeling, waiting, being still was difficult, and with it came not only physical discomfort but mental pressure to do something, anything. He began to feel frustrated.  
It was, perhaps, the ever turning spiked wheel upon which everyone lived, in some form: pain, tedium, frustration, that could push one into causing chaos just to relieve it, if they couldn’t learn to be still.  
But, if Albie rebelled, in the slightest way, Alexa would be displeased.  
The sound of the car’s wheels disappeared. Albie couldn’t see, but he knew what he would see if he wasn’t blindfolded. An Ishtar cameraman unobtrusively filming Alexa with her whip in her hand, standing on the Afghani carpet in the center of the library, the glazed oriel windows closed, the titles of old leather bound books winking with stolen light from the dark oak shelves, waiting for the right moment to strike. Albie wished she would do it. The pain of waiting was so much worse than being struck. That, he craved. It brought all the tension of waiting to head, launched fireworks along his senses.  
It seemed like several minutes that he listened to the whip sing through the air on its way to him. When it made cruel contact with his skin, he tightened his stomach muscles to ground his body from buckling onto his belly as his wrists collapsed. His mouth filled with saliva, he swallowed quickly lest he drool onto the carpet.

“You can scream, Tristen,” Alexa said.  
Mercy. He accepted it like a sudden ocean wind swelling in the sails of a crippled ship. Screaming felt good. Having a reason to scream felt better. No blow was as intense as the first. It hurt, it stung, it burned, but when the seconds gathered between blows he began to recover and the burning pain turned into a lively sting. That was good, but not enough. Not all Alexa could do. Enough-but not too much. Albie thrived on ‘Too much’.  
She knew him. Knew by the sound of his breaths and the rise and fall of his chest and stomach, by the pattern of the blush on his skin, how much he could take, and what he was up for.  
The whip came again, and again, it felt like a nest of stinging snakes assailing his body, not just one small toy wielded by one small woman.  
The whipping ceased and Albie felt the tickle of Alexa’s hair against his cheek and the smell of her perfume, green tea and cherries, sweet and earthy but light, a smell that faded as fast as it bloomed in the back of his throat. He smelled her leather opera gloves and felt their cold, smooth texture flirting with his skin as she slid the velvet blindfold off.  
“Cut,” she mouthed, to the cameraman.  
Albie exhaled loudly, feeling his whole body now in a way he hadn’t when his attention had been commanded by his pain. His skin burned where he had been struck, but he was also covered in cold sweat. Beneath, his skin felt hot and feverish. He lay on his back on the carpet like a sleepy kid on Christmas morning, crashing after opening presents.  
Alexa sat beside him, on her side with her legs tucked, like a mermaid. She regarded him with patient eyes. He hoped she was pleased with the scene. He dared the impertinence of placing his head on her lap. She was in a good mood, too, as pleased to dominate him as he was to submit. That was the thing about D/s: both sides thrived, and gave each other what they craved. One of nature’s symbiotic bonds. She stroked his wet hair.  
“You’re hard,” she observed. “That’s very good, since you have another scene to film today.”  
More waiting. He’d have no relief until his scene with Mattie, the Boy From the Café.  
“His screen name, by the way, is Pete Parker. Don’t laugh,” she said.  
Albie was still drifting back to shore, after all those intense waves of pain and bliss. Words reached him as if they were shouting between islands. He did manage a laugh, though.  
“I’ll try not to call him Spidey,” Albie said.  
Alexa stroked his sweaty face with his glove. Leather against his skin….Albie swooned. He closed his eyes against the feel of it. So smooth, so strong, both welcoming and forbidding, its smell the stink of flesh and bite of chemicals. An evil smell. There was nothing else like it. Albie’s lower body felt more insistent. Alexa gave his cock a slap. It was a warning. Satisfaction would have to wait, and he’d already been told. Arousal crawled up his spine in hot cold waves. Within the most intimate nook of his body, he felt stirrings. He needed to be touched, penetrated, filled. He wanted Alexa to do it now, with her hands, with the instruments of her calling. Mattie, or Pete, or whatever he was called, was sweet to look at, but he was sure their scene would be pretty vanilla. It was probably his first time doing anything like this. 

“Go clean up,” Alexa instructed him. 

 

Nathalie led Mattie through the Tudor house. They entered the foyer, which was octagonally shaped. A tasteful chandelier was at the center of the domed ceiling, which was painted a nice ecru that drew the light of the chandelier and made it appear even warmer and brighter. A vase of lilacs sat on an antique table. The décor became more ‘old world’ as they proceeded, like something from an eighteenth century novel. The oak doors and walls gave everything an antique, old world feel. Carved green men peered from the ceiling and carved into corners.  
Mattie couldn’t believe this was where they would be filming. What was he expecting? A dungeon? A low budget set? A storage unit? A sleazy hotel? Or a house where some kind of coke-fueled party was being thrown? Those, he realized were the vague stereotypes that had formed beneath the surface of his thoughts. The judgements had been there all along, only now that he was unpacking them did he realize it.  
Beyond the foyer was the entrance hall, which looked like a Shakespeare play would have been privately performed for the pleasure of a Duke in the 16th century. There was actually a tapestry over the fireplace. Mattie was good at being still. His shoulders and arms were relaxed, and his back was straight. The wait was over when the doors on the other side of the hall entered. He heard Alexa’s high heels on the dark wooden floor, and looked up to see her walking towards him wearing a strapless black leather dress, a Spanish lace choker around her neck that looked like a collar, and leather gloves. It was so cold outside but her arms were bare, and they drew Mattie’s eyes to them for their nudity. Exposed, vulnerable flesh the color of the inside of an almond. It was more seductive than the Dominatrix trappings, for its vulnerability. We begin by wanting to protect what we eventually love, and she looked prey for the February cold. The evenness of her skin and softness of her flesh also gave her arms the tender look of something edible. Where the gloves began, her arms ended, so it was also a precious sight.

“Pete!” she said, warmly. “We’re so glad you’re here.”  
Mattie wondered if it was a royal we thing, or if there were a lot of other people there. He didn’t want to be watched by a lot of people. He knew he would be filming with someone else, but just how many other people would watch him have sex with a stranger?  
It was a fine time to get cold feet.  
“Go freshen up, Nathalie will let you know when you’re needed,” she said.  
Once again, just like when they first met, the tone of her voice made Mattie feel like obeying was the only option, and he was glad to do it.  
“Cleanliness is really important,” Nathalie said  
“Yeah, no one wants to be with the random smelly guy on set,” Mattie said.  
Nathalie laughed. “Exactly. And you can relax in the bath. Then, you get to meet Tristen,” she said. “Well, meet him again, right? You met once?”  
“Once,” Mattie said.

Nathalie led Mattie to a bathroom with a big, antique porcelain tub and a selection of French soaps in a cabinet. As the water poured from the faucet into the tub, Mattie picked a lavender soap that reminded him of summers in Burgundy. The smell of Provencal lavender smelled like cleanliness itself. There were also fluffy towels, the fluffiest Mattie had ever seen, waiting in the closet, and a bathrobe. Should he wear the bathrobe to set and then….disrobe? Nathalie would tell him.  
When the tub was full, and curls of steam were flitting across the surface of the water, Mattie dipped a finger in to test the water. He reminded himself that that’s what he was doing here, today ,with Ishtar-just testing the water. If he didn’t like this, if it wasn’t for him, then he could quit. Its not like he was going to run into any of these people at the mall. The fact that they inhabited such a secret world meant that if he chose to leave it all behind, it would be one and done and he could just focus on real life.  
He took off his clothes, and slipped into the bath. The water stung, at first, all over Mattie’s body. He enjoyed it. It hurt, but it was so immersive. He tuned into the pain, and became something else. Still an intense sensation, but it no longer hurt. It was more like, excitement. His whole body felt so alive. It became less intense the longer he directed his senses to stare headlong into the feelings. He sank into the water, feeling light, buoyant, almost weightless and smaller. The water was so big, and it was embracing him. He soaped himself up and the sweet, light, summery smell of lavender filled the room and soothed his body and senses. Mattie felt relaxed, more sure about what he was doing. Mattie thought about Tristen’s solo video, and the way his deep voice and his unabashedly blissful moans filled his small, cold bedroom as the video played. 

Nathalie knocked on the door. Mattie dried off, and got dressed once again. It was time to film, he assumed.  
“Ready, Pete?” she asked, as they walked down the hallway.  
The paintings on the wall were mostly nineteenth century landscapes, in the vein of Whistler, the American transliteration of the Gothic Romantic movement. The ethos behind dramatic paintings of natural scenes like storms at sea or waterfalls crashing over mountain precipices was an idea called the sublime-that the stimuli of the natural world caused different psychological responses in human beings. One could even say that it had an effect on the human soul.  
Nathalie opened the door to a bedroom with an old fashioned four-poster canopied bed. The bed was covered in a heavy dark green velvet bedspread. There were ottomans and armchairs about the room, a fireplace, a window with curtains the same green velvet as the bedspread. The curtains were open to the dogwood grove and the pond, which reflected the gray sky. Lighting technicians were adjusting the lights, and Tristen was sitting on the bed, waiting. His face looked visibly bored except for a spark of curiosity in his flame blue eyes, like a little kid waiting for some interesting spectacle to take place. He looked up, and saw Mattie enter the room. 

In that moment, Mattie was glad he hadn’t gone with the bathrobe. He had the familiar feel of his Odd Future hoodie. Its well-worn warmth was apart of his old life that was like a shield as he felt the fabric of life as he had known it so far tear a little. If he had been filming with someone else, maybe he would feel differently. But, the way Tristen Ludlowe looked at him changed his course more concretely than when he submitted the application to Ishtar, or met Alexa at the warehouse. There was light, warmth, and welcome in Tristen’s eyes that there had not been before-that’s how Mattie knew that it was all for him. How many people do we pass anonymously, avoid or shrink away from as soon as we can get away with the bare minimum of interaction? How many people do we dismiss and anonymously abuse in small ways, killing their confidence with papercuts, leaving them feeling unwanted not for the first time?  
Tristen’s eyes were a warm home after a long journey. His smile made Mattie’s heart smile, and beat less frantically. Maybe, as Nathalie said, every step he had taken had just been to bring him closer to this moment. He wanted this. 

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do,” Mattie admitted.  
That was death to a dancer. They were supposed to get by on minimal direction and maximum performance-to know what the instructor wanted instinctively, before they had to be corrected. But, this wasn’t ballet. It was a performance Mattie had no reference for, and he needed Tristen’s help. It was a risk to admit that, but he felt safe with Tristen. It was such a strong and instant feeling, all he could do was go with it.  
Tristen was considerably taller than Mattie. As Mattie had noticed before, he could be a dancer, he had the foundations of the perfect physique. He’d need more muscle. He wasn’t thin, and he was in shape, but less muscle mass than a male ballet dancer would need for lifts. Mattie had to look up at his face. Tristen smiled, and said,  
“Right now, just breathe. You don’t want to be all psyched out before we begin. Relax,” Tristen said, calmly and kindly.  
“I’ve never done this before,” Mattie admitted.  
Why was he being so weak with someone he barely knew? This feeling that he would be OK with Tristen, this instant connection he felt between them like recognition, was making him cough up confessions and it was starting to unnerve him.  
“You’ll be fine. Pete, right?” Tristen asked.  
“Yeah. Pete Parker. It was the first thing I could think of. I’m starting to regret it, a little,” Mattie said.  
Tristen laughed. Mattie loved the way his laugh came up from deep in his throat and partly stuck there, rumbling a little bit in the air around his words.  
“I’ve heard worse. Way worse,” Tristen said. He was wearing one of the fuzzy bathrobes Mattie had passed on, and Mattie figured it was probably some preferred protocol that he had totally skipped. “So, let me show you around,” he added.  
“Everything we’ll need before we roll is right here,” he said, pulling out a drawer with condoms, baby wipes, and lube. Mattie was a little shocked. They were really doing this. He was really doing this, it was really happening.  
Tristen saw the shock dart across his face. He put a comforting hand on Mattie’s shoulder.  
“It’s a good place,” Tristen said. “Ishtar, I mean. I’ve been doing this a while. You have choices, here. And if you’re not comfortable, you can always say so. Seriously, always.”  
“I….need the money,” Mattie admitted.  
“This bad?” Tristen asked.  
Mattie thought about his rent, and his tuition. He thought his thoughts would be held hostage by the knowledge of his debts. How could he eat, sleep, and keep company with other human beings at ease knowing that he might lose his apartment and have to take a break from school? But, the stress abated, after a while. The body doesn’t let the mind live in perpetual tension that never lets up. The heart would give out. He wasn’t scared anymore, but he knew that this was his best shot at making enough money to cover both expenses.  
“I mean….yeah. Why? Does it…hurt?” Mattie asked. He felt like he sounded stupid.  
Tristen looked alarmed. He put his hand to Mattie’s face, and smoothed his wet hair from his face. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Tristen said. “I just wanted to make sure you want to do this.”  
“I want to,” Mattie said.  
Tristen had stirred the scent of lavender in Mattie’s hair, from the soap. It rose in the air around them as if they walked in a rain soaked garden.  
“Okay. Let’s breathe,” Tristen said.  
They sat on the bed. The lights set up by the bed were hot. Mattie was too hot in his Odd Future hoodie. Tristen closed his eyes.  
“Take deep breaths. In, and out, and feel it deep in your stomach. Think, ‘I breathe in as I breathe in, I breathe out as I breathe out,’” Tristen said.  
Mattie watched him breathe, and Tristen’s handsome face became engraved with calm. The kind of calm you covet and think you’ll never attain, that some people are just more ‘Zen’ than others. But, Mattie tried it. Dancers had to breathe into their muscles to keep their bodies warm, so he wasn’t unfamiliar to the effect of deep breathing.  
I breathe in as I breathe in, I breathe out as I breathe out. His breaths became longer, deeper, and he could feel the essence of air permeating his whole body from within. He could feel his breath in his spine, and in his face. He felt warm.  
“Feel better?” Tristen asked.  
“I feel…warm,” Mattie said.  
“Good. Get warm. Get comfortable,” Tristen said. He took Mattie’s hands in his. They were dry and warm.  
Mattie continued to breathe. Alexa came into the room, and Mattie could feel her taking notice of them without watching them. If he was uncomfortable, he could tell her, he was sure of it. He could feel that. But, instead he kissed Tristen’s hand.  
“Thanks for helping me calm down,” Mattie said.  
“Thanks for not calling out sick,” Tristen said.  
Mattie laughed. Workplace terminology in a setting like this just felt surreal.  
Tristen came closer. Mattie felt his warmth against his skin. Tristen was so warm, and naturally tan in a way that didn’t seem possible in winter. Tristen was summer. Mattie thought of an Albert Camus quote he must have seen on social media,  
“Even in the midst of winter, I found within myself an invincible summer.”  
Tristen had helped Mattie find summer inside himself. He kissed Mattie’s hair, his temples, his forehead, and even his nose, which made Mattie laugh. Their eyes met as he did so, and Tristen smiled.  
Mattie thought of the French word, ‘triste’. It was so close to Tristen. It meant ‘sad’. There was a sliver of sadness in Tristen’s eyes, in the corner of the happiness. Tristen, triste. Mattie didn’t want him to be sad. He placed his hand on the back of his neck, gently, pulled him in, and Tristen let Mattie pull him in. Mattie kissed him.  
Tristen laughed in surprise against Mattie’s lips. Gladness bloomed in Mattie’s belly. He felt so spontaneously happy. He felt the warmth of Tristen’s thighs beneath him when Tristen coaxed Mattie onto his lap. It all felt playful.  
“Glad you boys are getting along,” Alexa said. “I always knew you would.”  
Words were coming to Mattie in waves, as if from far away, as warmth blossomed beneath his skin. Tristen caressed him, his arms, his back, looking into his eyes, asking if this was okay, if he had his permission, if he still wanted this. The terry robe Tristen was wearing had parted, and Mattie dared to caress Tristen’s hairy thighs. Tristen’s erection nudged Mattie’s belly. Mattie took off his tshirt. Tristen buried his face in Mattie’s neck and kissed him. Mattie could feel gratitude coming in waves from Tristen’s skin. He wanted this, and was hoping that Mattie did, too.  
Mattie wanted this.


	9. Chapter 9

Matthieu. Pete. Boy From the Café. Puppy. They had only met twice, now, but already Albie had called him so many names. Now, there was no need for names, or words at all. They had crossed the biggest hurdle between any two people-knowing if they both wanted the same thing. Mattie wouldn’t have been the first person to go through all the preliminary motions and then not show up, or get to set and have some kind of meltdown about what they were about to do. Albie had seen a little bit of everything, between Toy Boys and Ishtar.  
Toy Boys, the first company he filmed for, was as different from Ishtar as night was to day. It was all about sweat, hard pounding, and masculine grunting there. One guy was always the bulky hard-driving aggressor, the other the bottom with an expression of pained willingness who was reluctantly loving it. Ishtar strove for spontaneous, organic intimacy. It was hard to achieve with some people.  
Mattie wasn’t one of those people. Albie kissed him, and it felt real. It was instant, like a wave swallowing the sand beneath his feet at the edge of the ocean. The lights, camera, crew, and even the familiar form of Alexa in her leather dress, watching her art slowly unspool like silk in hot water, all became slightly blurry. This wasn’t being filmed, he knew he would have to snap his attention back to the moment when filming began. But, for now, there was only Mattie. He was still clothed, but Albie could feel his warmth beneath his clothes. He was slender, but soft. The thinness of his limbs and waist made Albie feel protective. It was a different feeling than touching a woman, or a bigger man. Mattie…or, rather, Pete, felt so delicate, but there was hidden strength in his arms, in his hands, and Albie could feel that potential beneath the softness.  
And, he was wiggly. His spine undulated like the lapping tide of a lake as he poured his body into their kiss, gripping Albie’s shoulders almost painfully until Albie coaxed Mattie’s hands to stroke his back, up and down. That always felt like love to him, for some reason. It calmed him. Mattie did so, eagerly, kissing him as if they were high school kids who only had a few stolen minutes before someone’s parents burst in. Albie remembered that kind of kissing, and his mom had indeed burst in on him and Denny. That’s why he was sent to camp, to be changed, to be “fixed.”….he didn’t want those dark memories to intrude, not now. But finding this sort of joy again brought the pain back, too.  
“Slow down,” he told Mattie, gripping his skinny hips to still his writhing little ass.  
“Why isn’t the camera on?” Mattie said breathily. Someone laughed.  
“Because, this is prep,” Albie said.  
“Oh. Okay. So…which part is that?” Mattie said.  
“Its okay if you don’t know. This is your first time, right?” Albie said.  
Mattie blushed. He actually blushed. For a minute, Mattie’s innocence shamed him. The memories came again…the hot, wet, dense, soggy Florida heat, the taste of heat and humidity in his mouth and the words of the youth pastors at camp. He didn’t deserve to touch someone as genuine and innocent as Mattie.  
“Yeah, its my first time,” Mattie said.  
“How do you want to do this?” Albie said.  
“What’s, like, industry standard?” Mattie said.  
“You don’t want the industry standard, trust me. We just want you to be comfortable. Its supposed to be as real as possible, so we have to trust each other, and talk out where we’re going with this,” Albie said.  
Mattie was still rocking minutely on Albie’s lap, and he had to disengage. He eased Mattie off his lap and tied the robe. He felt parodically demure, like a gentleman in a zany 1930s comedy about the upper classes. He wondered if he should just take the robe off. He was hesitant to be entirely nude in front of Mattie’s dark green eyes. They had a smoldering lustre, like polished emeralds. They looked enchanted or haunted. They could turn him to stone, or see all his secrets. His whole past-the fake sighs and moans he emitted at Toy Boys while holding his real pain inside, the drugs he took to erase the pain altogether and be more “fun”, like his new friends, the emptiness he felt when his friends weren’t around, and eventually, when they were, too….Being a sub and slave was healing him, helping him to replace rumination with mindfulness. But, for some reason, the old feelings of guilt at his shallowness and wasted time were rising again. Something about Mattie was too intense, too real. His youthful beauty and innocent gestures were like being visited by some ancient god of spring, love, hope, and beauty. Albie understood now why gods in old myths incinerated their lovers with their light. 

He took a deep breath. He had to be the one in control, here. If he was going to give Mattie an experience completely opposite to that of his own first time in porn, he had to get it together.  
“Is this okay?” he asked, as he slipped his hands beneath Mattie’s tshirt and kissed his stomach. The breathless sigh that he let out was good, but not enough of an answer. He needed to hear Mattie say, ‘Yes.’  
Mattie’s body unfolded for him. He lay back on the pillows and velvet bedspread, and his legs falling languidly open like the petals of a magnolia falling open beneath the summer sun. His stomach was so pale that it was easy, so easy, to make him blush and see it flare beneath his skin. Albie could feel him shudder. His breathing quaked his rib cage. God, he was thin-Albie could see his ribs, pressing up against that magnolia skin.  
“Yes….” Mattie said.  
That was all Albie needed. He closed his mouth around Mattie’s girlish nipple, kissed his neck, as well, and when their stomachs met, touching like ocean and sky, Mattie kissed him. Mattie wound his thin arms around Albie’s neck. He looked into Mattie’s eyes. For some reason, Albie wanted to cry. Something about those eyes, broke his heart open and unleashed all the real, heavy, hidden things. But, beneath them there was joy that wanted to come out, too.  
Mattie reached between their bellies, and touched Albie’s erection. He made a little breathy sound of awe as he tentatively stroked him. Albie closed his eyes, and tried to breathe steadily as sensation assailed him. Mattie had long fingers, and his palm was soft and smooth. His hands shook. If they were alone, if this was their real lives, he would be frantically taking Mattie’s clothes off and kneeling to hastily rim him so that he could be inside him as soon as possible. 

But, this was Ishtar, there were protocols. If they didn’t follow them, Alexa would punish him gladly.

“I’ve never….” Mattie murmured, but didn’t finish. Albie helped him out of his Odd Future hoodie and tshirt.  
“I can’t believe this is really happening,” Mattie said.  
He was so cute. All Albie could do was smile fondly. People who showed such genuine emotions, no matter how vulnerable or goofy or happy, were so rare, and so special. Being in Mattie’s presence made Albie feel like he could relax and feel more, but he also wanted to protect him. There were soul eating birds of prey in this world-he wanted to keep Mattie out of their grasp after knowing him for just a few minutes.  
Albie took the terry robe off. It was the least he could do. Mattie was giving him so much emotion, it was time for him to expose something, too even if all he had to give was his body, that had been given, filmed, and distributed so many times.  
Mattie gave him a look he had never seen on another human face before. For a minute, his eyes looked so much older and wiser than the archangel’s face of androgynous youthful beauty that those eyes were set in. His green eyes looked dark and benevolently solemn, and encouraging. The safety that Albie felt was indescribable. It was a holy moment.  
They lay side by side, and merely touched each other. Mattie’s head rested on Albie’s shoulder, murmuring wordless exhalations against his skin that traveled up and down Albie’s skin like a marathon of butterflies. They came close to kissing, but instead breathed in each other’s breath and the heat of their inhalations and exhalations. Their weeping cocks brushed each other, and each other’s stomachs. Albie dissuaded Mattie from resuming to stroke him as he had hesitantly, experimentally been doing minutes earlier. He did appreciatively handle Mattie, though, marveling at the rose wine color of his hardened flesh, the length of it, and the way Mattie’s eyes closed and his face tensed at the slightest touch.  
Albie wasn’t new to this. He knew the timing and flow of these things, and it was time they got started, in earnest.  
He kissed Mattie deeply, and then opened the drawer. He took out the lube, the condoms, squeezed the tube and let he gel gather in a healthy dollup on his fingertips. 

Mattie became his whole world as he prepared him with wet fingers, breaching his most intimate channel and feeling the dry heat of Mattie’s body reject and then swallow and squeeze him. Mattie was a blossom beneath his hands, a strange flower with living heat and a pulse.  
“Good?” Albie asked. Soon, the camera would be on.  
Mattie murmured many sentences that had no real beginning or end, his eyes half closed. He was in his own private space of sensation. Albie kissed him again to bring him back to earth, and asked again how he was doing, if this was good.  
“Yes,” Mattie breathed. “But….I’ve…never done this before.”  
“First time for everything, right?” Albie said. He didn’t mean it flippantly, and he hoped that Mattie knew that.  
He slowly retracted his hands, and put on a condom. Mattie watched him while he did so, and it was the exposure that he had feared, those eyes on him when he felt most open. But, it had come and passed and Albie didn’t feel uncomfortable. He drew Mattie’s thin legs around his waist, kissed him, and grounded himself by placing one hand on the velvet covers, Mattie’s chestnut brown hair, damp with his own sweat, grazing Albie’s hand as, with the other hand, he aligned himself to the door of Mattie’s body.  
Albie tried his best not to get lost in it, so he could stay focused on how Mattie was doing. He could tell be the way his partner’s body shook from their breathing if they were uncomfortable, bored, faking it, or, worst case-scenario, in pain. Mattie wasn’t in either state. He writhed beneath Albie, squeezing him closer with his thin thighs, with an enthusiasm that Albie almost wanted to resist. The way his body responded to it was new for him, or something he had known once and forgotten. Deep waters were threatening to pull him in, under, out of sight of land. The tears of Mattie’s cock as it weeped pre-fluid smeared and warmed Albie’s belly. The drops of amber leaked and ran in time with Albie’s movements and Mattie’s undulations beneath him. They were two strands being stretched and woven together, infinitely, a bridge of stars.  
Mattie cried out, and at first it distressed Albie until he realized it was pleasure, it was joy. He found his own bliss, and exhaustion followed after the weightless elation wore off.

They lay together in the weak winter sunshine as it tickled their body with gray light. Soon, they would have to clean up, but Mattie looked like Endymion in his enchanted sleep beside him. His eyes were closed, he was awake and taking deep, labored breaths. Albie held him close.  
Someone asked Alexa if she had gotten everything she wanted. Albie couldn’t hear her answer.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mattie's POV!

Tristen's hands were so warm, and so big. Everywhere they caressed Mattie felt branded by his palm. Surely there must be some kind of rune burned permanently into his skin from Tristen's touch, a trail of them. Each touch both soothed and aroused Mattie more, until he forgot the camera, crew, and Alexa were there at all. 

He hadn't thought that it would be possible to forget that he was being watched and filmed losing his virginity, but the mind has its ways. It helped that he wasn't new to the performing arts. After barre and center work, a typical dance class would have a floor work portion, where dancers were called one by one to work on a technique like jumps. The instructors' scrutiny, flanked by the eyes of all one's classmates, could be terrifying. Mattie had learned to pick a spot on the floor to focus his eyes, the spot he was aiming to land in a jump. It also curbed the pressure. 

He drifted away on the molten tide of his partner's touch, but retained enough presence of mind to pick a spot. Not on the floor, but out the window over Tristen's shoulder. The winter bare grove, and the silver lake. He could see the bare branches shudder in the winter wind. Snow in the air, snow laden clouds a paper white that the water reflected, looking like a spilled elixir from an alchemist's vial. In the oval shaped lake, water undulated from one side to the other. Mattie could hear music. The motion of the trees and water reminded him of the languid way Clair de Lune by Debussy unspooled like a glistening ribbon. 

Tristen helped him undress. Mattie had taken his shirt off while making out, before, but only once, and his partner on that occasion had pinched his nipples too roughly. 

"Ugh. Guys try shit they see in porn. They think we actually like that shit," a female friend had said when he related the incident. 

Mattie had been uncomfortable with the way she said, 'We'. Decades of rom coms had taught women that gay men were 'one of the girls.' Mattie didn't havr much interest in shopping, fashion, Top 40 pop music, and as far as romantic advice, he didn't have a love life to draw from to give any advice. And, he didn't talk much. Despite an initial flurry of interest from a lot of girls seeking a cute gay male friend, Mattie felt like he'd been unsatisfactory in that department and they had lost interest. 

But, maybe porn did give a lot of people ideas about what sex should be. Slapping, hair pulling, choking….this was different. They were creating something different, here-tender and spontaneous. Mattie felt himself forgetting that it wasn't real. Warmth filled his body, ambrosial intoxication that made him swoon. He looked down and was embarrassed by the sight of his erection. He looked at Tristen with something like an apology, and saw desire in his blue eyes. It was hot, intense, almost felt threatening, and Mattie wanted to look away and cover himself. That wouldn't be fair to Tristen, who'd shed his terry robe, and was as naked as birth. His skin was a healthy rosy shade, even in winter, and arousal made him blush even more beneath the masculine hair that covered his chest, belly, arms and legs. It was a rusty reddish gold. Tristen's body was the colors of spring warming to summer, of fecundity and health. His cock made Mattie want to gulp in appreciaton and trepidation- he did have to take that thing, after all. 

It was the perfect crowning touch of the overall presentation of Tristen's body- his tall, athletically cultivated frame with its hidden plains of subtle softness, all that hair...and finishing off the picture, his rosy, thick, dripping cock, and the tender skin of his balls. Mattie felt an instinct rise deep from deep within his belly, like a basilisk from its lair, to wrap his lips around the thick, wet tip of Tristen's cock. Hr wanted to do it so badly his spine shook and he was rocked by a wave of cold heat. His own erection surged a bit more, and the music in his head swelled. 

Tristen gathered Mattie into his arms and kissed him deeply. Mattie kissed him back, hungrily. The air he gathered from Tristen's mouth filled his throat, he swallowed it and felt the air and warmth fill his stomach. He sucked Tristen's tongue delighting in the feeling of his cock paintbrushing Tristen's stomach. 

Time swelled, and stretched. The winter bare grove and the silver lake slipped from view as Mattie lay into the embrace of the velvet covers. Tristen lay beside him, and his heat shined on Mattie like the nourishing rays of the sun on a clear summer day. 

Tristen reached into the drawer beside the bed, and produced the things they would need for the scene: lube, and condoms. Safety and the actors' comfort, even pleasure, were priorites at Ishtar. It was beginning…and Mattie felt he owed Tristen the truth. 

"I've never done this before," Mattie confessed. 

This was the moment. Tristen could reject him in his heart, if he wanted, emotionally dismiss him and withdraw the heated affection he'd shown him so far. People always assumed that virgins couldn't feel passion. 

Tristen laughed, a little. A small, very manly but benign chuckle. It rumbled low in his throat, and the vibrations of the sound hummed in the air and danced along Mattie's naked flesh.  
"First time for everything, right?" Tristen said amiably. 

He stood. He sheathed himself in a condom, and despite the fact that it was for their safety, the act lookes so intimate it was almost illicit. Tristen handling his own cock was the most sensual thing Mattie had ever seen. 

Tristen came back to bed. His large, warm hands stroked Mattie's thighs. Mattie felt like fruit being penetrated by sunshine, growing ripe, swelling from within with warmth. His legs fell languidly open, blossoms shedding to reveal fruit. He was exposed to Tristen, and surrendered to the feelings within him, the waves of arousal travelling up and down his body, waking the most secret nooks of his body. They stirred, waking to hunger, alive and wanting to be touched, kissed, filled. 

Just when Mattie was beginning to feel empty, Tristen's fingertip, wet with viscous gel that smelled like peppermint and rosemary, sharply fresh with a musky note, prodded at the door of his body. 

Mattie gasped, and felt cold with shock. He shivered. There was pleasure, but also a kind of outrage. Tristen could see it in his eyes, and paused his hands. 

"Do you want this?" Tristen said. 

He'd already agreed to film for Ishtar, of course. The papers were signed and filed. But, Tristen needed an agreement of a different kind. He needed to know if Mattie wanted him, if he would enjoy this, or if this was a loveless task. 

"Yes," Mattie said, and meant it. The air relaxed around them. 

Tristen patiently, gently prodded Mattie's body open. He guided his breath with his stomach as he felt his lower body sting and close against Tristen's fingers, flutter and gasp open, feeling stretched open to reveal new corners he hadn't expected, then become hungry and open, grasping and gulping at Tristen's fingers and pulling them in deeper. 

Mattie rode Tristen's fingers, and with his other hand Tristen stroked Mattie's erection. The dual pleasure made him feel as if he had melted. 

When he was on the precipice of obliterating pleasure, Tristen withdrew. They kissed, and Mattie felt near to tears with affection for his gentle hands, his big, warm body, and his eyes, which seemed to have so much to say whenever they met Mattie's. 

Mattie had lost any reticence. He was open, exposed, nude, and knew that his body was moving wantonly, letting Tristen know how much he truly wanted this. He wanted him to know. 

He wanted to see it happen, when Tristen breached his body. He wanted them to be looking in each other's eyes, he wanted to see his body drink Tristen in. 

Panting, exchanging short, breathless kisses, Mattie and Tristen looked down, together. Mattie's thin, fair-skinned thighs were sharply contrasted against the green velvet covers. Tristen's thighs and belly quaked subtly with desire. Mattie was overwhelmed by the knowledge that Tristen wanted to be inside him. His anus was worked open and quaking, begging for Tristen in his own way. He'd waited so long for a man he trusted enough to sleep with. He knew it was just for the sake of filming, but he trusted Tristen's gentle, careful touch. 

Tristen held his erection and positioned the tip at Mattie's entrance. Mattie looked down at his body cradling and taking in the wet, bulbous pink head even as he felt it. Seeing it and feeling it at the same time set him on fire. His stomach heaved, his hips rolled, serving to take more of Tristen in. He felt so good and full- his body stung around the shape of Tristen, but the walls of him clung to and pulled his cock. Mattie matched the rhythm of his hips to the contractions of his anus, as he clung to Tristen's warm weight on top of him and swallowed Tristen's moans with a kiss. 

Mattie came against Tristen's stomach, his climax driven on by the burn of Tristen's leg, chest and stomach hair, by the reverberations of Tristen's deep throated moans, by the full feeling within him. Tristen caressed him through the crisis. Mattie's first orgasm shared with a lover. He felt emptied and exhausted, a cloth rung dry, when it was done, but the channel filled by Tristen was still hungry. It needed Tristen's cock deeper, to go harder, faster. Mattie felt his body learning new things about itself, what it wanted and how it could feel. Would he be the same person, after this? 

Mattie orgasmed. The feeling began from within, then spread along his skin, in hot and cold waves. He even felt it in his cock, which had already been satisfied. He held onto Tristen in the midst of the storm within him. 

They kissed sleepily, holding each other like twins, as the camera, and Alexa's appraising eye, looked on.


	11. Chapter 11

Alexa softly said, “Cut,” and then walked over to the bed where Tristen and Mattie lay, looking like a solemn angel backlit by gray sunlight.  
“That was beautiful,” she said to Tristen, and there was pride and affection in her voice. Her long dark hair pooled on his chest as she leaned in to kiss his lips. His head rose from his pillow as he kissed her back, with his eyes closed.  
Mattie didn’t feel jealous. He loved the contrast of her dark hair and almondflesh colored skin, and Tristen’s ruddy skin and rusty blonde hair. He loved the warmth that wafted from their skin and waved in the air around them, the vibe of love and trust surrounding them. He recalled Nathalie saying that Tristen was Alexa’s slave, and that sexual slavery was different than it sounded: a deep bond. He felt like he was seeing it in action, and it was an intimacy so total he wanted to look away, give them space, let their love breathe.  
He could still feel the shape of Tristen inside the nook of his body, where he had cradled, gulped, and swallowed him. That place was now home to an embarrassing sting, but also a stretched, hungry and empty feeling. Despite the inevitable pain, it wanted to swallow Tristen once again. Mattie could even feel an echo of their coupling in his stomach, from where he had engaged the muscles of his abdomen to take Tristen in and move beneath him. But, these feelings were tinged with the absence of Tristen from his body, now. He was no longer inside him. As for Alexa, whether she was near or far, she owned Tristen. Even when he was nude in bed with someone else. He craved that kind of intimacy in a sudden and primal urge.  
She looked over at him. She saw, she knew, and Tristen got the feeling that she liked it. This baffled him.  
“You two are all I’d hoped you’d be,” she said.  
Her voice was so warm, Mattie felt wrapped in it like he was in the emerald green velvet covers. She caressed Armie’s cheek, but Mattie felt it too. This wasn’t what he had expected of a dominatrix. Didn’t they walk all over men in high heels and hurl abuse at them? He hadn’t expected the way her voice caressed him.  
“We got some really great footage. Take a moment to yourselves,” she said.  
Tristen slipped his robe back on. Mattie had foregone one when he left the bath, now he realized he should have taken one. Instead, he wrapped himself in the green velvet bedspread, like a dress.  
Tristen laughed as he was belting it around his breastbone.  
“What? I forgot to take a complementary robe!” Mattie explained.  
“Come on-let’s take a bath,” Tristen said.  
Tristen followed him out of the room, as the crew deconstructed their equipment. Mattie had a bath before they filmed. The fact that he was going to have another one was symmetry.  
“So…what is this place?” Mattie asked.  
Tristen shrugged. He had a pure shrug. He didn’t try to deconstruct his mannerisms for irony, or play them up for sex appeal or cool. His shrug was a shrug, a simple and therefore perfect thing.  
“We film here. We have events here,” Tristen said.  
“What kind of events?” Mattie asked.  
“Easy, tiger kitty-we just popped your cherry. Figuratively speaking,” Tristen said, as they walked past Impressionist paintings hanging on the dark wood walls.  
Mattie thought he vaguely recognized them, from his studies, but those couldn’t possibly be real Manets, Sisleys, and Morisots. If so, they were worth millions. This awed Mattie, but also guilted him-he hadn’t worked on his project in days, and the clock was ticking. He felt like he was trashing the new faith in him that Alcazar had after their conversation about art.  
“Not figuratively,” he said. “I told you. This is my first time.”  
“Yeah, filiming. Congratulations. Someone should have gotten you a cake shaped like a dick, or a little blue Viagra tablet. Why does no one think of these things? We’ll save it for when you retire at he ripe old age of `25,” Tristen said.  
They paused. Mattie said, “You don’t understand. I thought you understood. It isn’t just my first time doing porn. It is but….its my first time having sex, too. When I said it was my first time, I thought….”  
Tristen looked at Mattie with a stony, steely expression in his eyes that made them darken in color, from gas fire blue to stormy ocean blue.  
“What?” he said with silky contempt. The ‘t’ on the end of what snapped, and Mattie felt lashed by it.  
“I thought you understood,” Mattie said.  
“You didn’t jump through any hoops to clarify what you meant, exactly,” Tristen said contemptuously. “Does Alexa know? I doubt it.”  
“No. I didn’t tell anyone until today, until I told you. And now you hate me. Just like all the other guys who wouldn’t even give me a chance because ‘virgins get attached after you break them in’,” Mattie said. “I’m sick of this. Everyone’s a virgin until they’re not, right? Why is it such a bad thing? Its just…human nature, or something.”  
Tristen said, “I never would have agreed to do a scene with a virgin. I’m sorry, but its true. Don’t take it personally.”  
“So, you didn’t like fucking me?” Mattie asked.  
Tristen swallowed, slowly. Mattie watched his face. That stubble-flecked perfectly chiseled jawline, those emotive eyes that held a kaleidoscope of feelings. He could see that his words had an effect on Tristen. Just as Mattie could feel the sting and the shape of him when he walked, in a way Tristen could feel Mattie inside him, too.  
The memory of them.  
He couldn’t say that he regretted Them.  
Mattie and Tristen heard a sigh from the room in front of which they were paused. Mattie recognized the angel wing tattooes adorning the back of the woman kneeling, sitting on her heels. The woman gripping the bed curtains in bliss was wearing a Venetian carnival mask. By the window, blocking the window’s view of the wintry scene outside, a woman in a cranberry taffeta dress sitting in a Louis the 15th chair played the cello. Mattie and Tristen watched, transfixed, as the tattooed woman tenderly pleasured the woman laying before her on the edge of the bed, the cello’s rich music unspooling in the air around them. She delved her tongue between the other woman’s shaved labia, tasting the tender, glistening flesh as if it were the pulpy chambers of a piece of summer fruit.  
A frisson danced through Mattie. He liked the sight of them. Tristen looked at him, and felt the heat blooming within him. He put steadying hands on Mattie’s shoulder, as the fatigue of his earlier orgasm, the irritation within him from where Tristen had been inside him, and this new, blossoming arousal at the sight of the masked and tattooed woman over came him. Tristen held him, as he felt it all. His body’s sensations and his emotions’ reactions to it were two river that flowed into each other.  
“I liked it,” Tristen said. “You know that. But..”  
Tristen sighed.  
“I just wish I had known, so we could have talked about it,” Tristen said.  
“About the scene? Would you have done it differently?” Mattie asked.  
“I would have talked you out of all this. You should lose your viriginity with someone you love, who really cares about you, in a setting that makes you comfortable-not on a porn set,” Tristen said.  
“But….I chose this,” Mattie said.  
“I know….but maybe its not what’s best for you,” Tristen said.  
“I wanted to do this. I mean, its not my childhood dream, or anything,” Mattie said.  
Tristen laughed. “God, I hope not!”  
Mattie smiled. Maybe they were back on a good foot, he hoped.  
“But…you know. Circumstances arose, and I needed the money,” Mattie said. “You can understand that, right?”  
“You don’t need my approval. My concern is just that, concern,” Tristen said.  
“I liked what we did. It felt so good…you were so gentle, and…loving. Is that inappropriate, for me to say? I just mean, you were kind. I know we don’t know each other….but I felt so safe and free with you,” Mattie said.  
“Its just the Ishtar ambience working its effect. Something about the atmosphere, here-it inspires people to let go,” Tristen said.  
“It was you,” Mattie said.  
Tristen looked into Mattie’s eyes. Mattie flinched, and wanted to look away from the intensity of it. Waves of heat crashed up and down his spine, and his erection came to life once more beneath the velvet covers that were an improvised gown around him. Tristen kissed Mattie, the way he had never been but always hoped to be kissed in his life-rough but loving, hungry but tender, as if he were delicious and precious. He stroked Mattie’s stomach, and reached into the folds of the velvet cover and fondled first his buttocks, cradling them. This stoked the irritated pain, within him, and Mattie gasped. Tristen thought it was from pleasure, then looked at Mattie’s wincing face. He wrapped his palm around Mattie’s length instead, grasping it loosely as his flesh surged slowly. Pleasure and yearning crashed, and Mattie’s vision became snowy.  
“Keep walking,” Tristen said. They entered a bathroom like the one in which Mattie had bathed before their scene, except in this room the bathtub was circular, and made out of speckled, polished amethyst that looked like marble.  
Tristen kissed Mattie, caressed his bare shoulders, and then left him to turn on the faucet. Steam filled the room. The velvet became too heavy, and Mattie dropped the cover. It would be crazy to be shy about being naked with Tristen, now, so he didn’t waste any time on shame.  
When the tub was nearly full, Tristen said, “Look.”  
Mattie directed his attention to the tub. Phantasmagoric steam skimmed the water’s surface, dancing in swirling waltzes. Tristen dropped little pellets into the water. Mattie closed his eyes as the sound of splashing added to the sound of water pouring out of the faucet. The sound was the perfect instrument to duet the turbulent longing building in Mattie’s body. He wanted…he didn’t even know what he wanted. He was too sore for what they had done on camera, again, but he wanted more from Tristen, wanted more hands, mouth, lips, more of the echo of Tristen’s moans and the heat of his breath as he sighed. More of the pleasure that bloomed in different parts of his own body, at random, then joined together in a blinding symphony. Now that he knew, he wanted more.  
The sound of water stopped. Mattie opened his eyes. The pellets were opening, expanding, blooming, into flowers. Water lilies, or lotuses. Music began to play, and for the first time, Mattie noticed speakers in the corner of the walls. One of Eric Satie’s Gymnopedies began to fill the room. Water trailed down a basalt waterfall wall into a small pool of polished pebbles, and amethyst cathedrals winked with borrowed light.  
Mattie put one foot in the bath. Tristen took off his terry cloth robe, once more, and for the second time, Mattie was greeted by the sight of his rosy body, auburn chest hair, and the tender, hanging flesh of his ruddy complexioned, thick cock.  
They both got in the bath, the blossoms drifting around their chests.  
“Sorry I freaked out,” Tristen said, as the water’s initial sting wore off to soothing warmth.  
“You didn’t , really…I should have been more clear, I guess. But, I don’t feel bad about my choice,” Mattie said.  
“I wouldn’t want you to. Even if you regret it later, its not my place to pass a verdict. Ishtar is a good place,” Tristen said. “The hours are humane, you get condoms, health screenings, and you never have to fuck anyone you don’t want to, on or off the clock. It’s a good deal.”  
“Um…yeah, that sounds fair,” Mattie said, shocked at the conditions Tristen alluded to.  
“I liked it, too, Mattie,” Tristen said, then closed his eyes and sighed, absorbing the warmth of the water. He was so expressive. If something felt good, he exhaled his pleasure, and his features were boyishly happy and animated with passion. If he was displeased, he swelled and stiffened with anger, and everything soft and accessible about him became slightly forbidding.  
“How did you know my name?” Mattie asked.  
“Alexa told me, before you picked your nom de porno,” Tristen said.  
“Oh…what’s your name, Tristen?” Mattie said. Tristen said nothing.  
The hot water was soothing the pain Mattie had from taking Tristen’s cock. He felt relaxed, and teased by the warm, lapping water. His erection had flagged some from inattention, but he was still in a state of want.  
“Tell me your name?” Mattie said.  
“Pete…we shouldn’t. Its not exactly professional. I should call you Pete, from now on. I slipped,” Tristen said.  
Mattie reached out, and stroked Tristen’s stomach. Beneath the wet belly hair, his stomach shuddered. Mattie kissed the place between his pectorals, the valley of his chest were children draw the heart, in their innocent crayon art.  
Tristen moaned. Mattie’s cock twitched.  
He continued to kiss Tristen’s chest, and belly, caressing his shoulders and whispering in the wake of his kisses, “Tell me your name.”  
“Tell me your name,” he whispered, as Tristen’s erection lengthened against his stomach, his pink flesh visible beneath the steamy skim of the water’s surface.  
“Tell me your name,” Mattie said against Tristen’s heated skin as he crawled onto his lap, feeling the tickle of Tristen’s leg hair on his buttocks and the back of his thighs.  
Tristen kissed him deeply, and stroked him, milking Mattie’s cock until his semen floated on the water with the drifting blossoms.  
Breathing heavily, Mattie reached down to kiss the weeping tip of Tristen’s cock. Tristen gently coaxed him back up, and looked into Mattie’s emerald eyes.  
“Not yet,” he whispered.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie and Albie have a tense parting; Albie admits his feelings to Alexa. Warning slight dub-con, between Alexa and Albie, but a Master/slave arrangement is a complex one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe its been a month since I updated! Thanks to everyone who is still reading. I have been super busy with work, and it felt nice to get back to these characters and this world. Don't give up on me, guys! :) Love you all. Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo:)

Mattie wasn’t sure if Tristen meant he wouldn’t tell him his name, yet, or if he didn’t want him to fellate him, yet. His mind was racing and yet foggy, empty of words but full of sensations competing for his notice. He felt hot in the face and breathless from his climax, but there was also some kind of residual inertia controlling his body. His stomach heaved minutely, and his hips rolled subtly on Albie’s lap. Every time he moved forward, the tip of Albie’s erect penis brushed and tickled his stomach. It was so pink and lewd, a Priapic charm unearthed from an ancient temple, come to life in rosy wet flesh. Mattie kissed Tristen, hard, reveling in how free and weightless the water made him feel.  
“Why?” Mattie gasped, when they pulled away. Tristen said nothing, so Mattie kissed his neck. The steam caressed them, and the hot water’s sting had lessened to a womb like warmth. The sound of the waterfall and the soft piano music continued as if it always would, as if they had entered a warm celestial realm that was always safe, and there was always a soft song, a valley of infinite time and beauty.  
He kissed Tristen everywhere he could, raining kisses, bites, pausing to suck and taste the flesh of his neck, shoulders, and chest, whispering wherever his lips touched, “Tell me your name.”  
Until Tristen grasped his waist. First, it excited him. Mattie hardly knew what he expected would happen, but his skin and his spine shuddered in a sudden, heady wave of anticipation.  
Tristen’s blue eyes were dark and hot not with passion, but anger. Even so, it blazed through him, being so utterly seen even if it was in anger.  
“You need to learn boundaries. Cut it out,” Tristen snapped.  
There was no enticement in that. Mattie felt deflated and embarrassed.  
“I’m sorry,” Mattie said. “What did I do?”  
“I can’t tell you my name, and I’m not supposed to know your’s. Lex shouldn’t have told me. This whole thing has been so….” He said.  
“So, what?” Mattie asked.  
“It’s just….not how we do things. Ishtar is supposed to be different. Everyone has limits, and boundaries. And they’re supposed to be respected. There are rules, and they keep everyone safe,” Tristen Ludlowe said, then rushed out of the bath in a great splash that heaved water on the floor. He opened the cabinet on the wall from which he had taken the lotus petal bath bombs and got out a towel. He wrapped it around his middle.  
“I’m still getting used to all this. Its my first day,” Mattie pointed out, trying not to sound plaintive, desperate, whiny, and pathetic.  
There was no complaining or making excuses for yourself in ballet. You were either excellent, or irrelevant, and to be excellent you had to take direction, apply it, and put in 110% in effort. He had recognized that greatness in Misha, the dancer he had met at Celine’s class. Not just his sculpted Apollonian physique, but something about the easy, graceful confidence with which he walked, the peace in his eyes. He knew his body, he knew himself. Mattie, on the other hand, was a tongue-tied mess. He had let go and let instinct, sensation, and pleasure guide him while filming, but it wasn’t enough to let go-he still didn’t know what he was doing and so he didn’t know what to say to explain himself.  
“I just wanted to know who you are. I’m not allowed to know you?” he asked. “Is it because you’re a slave?”  
Tristen looked at him. His eyes flared with shock and then turned even colder.  
“Who told you that?” Tristen said. Before Mattie could answer, he said, “this has nothing to do with my arrangement with Alexa. Its just how things are. We can’t know each other that way. I wanted you to have what I didn’t have…a good first time. But we took it too far. I’m sorry I let things get out of hand.”  
“No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I shouldn’t have asked, Tristen,” Mattie said.  
He dared to look into Albie’s eyes, even though he knew that he would find anger there, as he said his nom de porno. He hoped that Albie could hear all the meaning he had tried to lace the name with as he said it-contrition, but also gratitude. He’d had a good first time. Better than if he had lost it to those guys at the freshman parties. He felt safe, seen, and thoroughly pleasured. He had found new feelings that his body was capable of, he had felt some previously unknown instinct take over as his body had chased those feelings, and he had felt Tristen’s body moving with his to the same obliterating bliss almost like the wordless and deep cooperation of dancing a pas de deux with another dancer. This had been their dance.  
Tristen softened. He didn’t seem angry, now, so much as scared. Mattie had scared him, and this made Mattie feel not only even more sorry than before but protective. He wanted to make it better. Tristen held a big, gentle hand out to him to help him out of the water, and Mattie took it. Those hands had touched his hair, had caressed him with love, and had been inside his body. Feeling Tristen’s hand in his, feeling the strength of his arm as he pulled Mattie out of the embrace of the water, and back into the steam of the air, and the kind, tender way he guided him over the wet tiles with his hand on the small of his back filled him with affection. He felt close to Tristen, even though he wasn’t allowed to. The air around Tristen was no longer forbidding and hot with displeasure, like the air around a tree that has been struck by lightning. There seemed to be a small chance that he would allow Mattie to feel for him, now.  
Was he the stereotypical virgin, getting attached, after all, Mattie wondered about himself.  
Tristen kissed his forehead, and played with his wet hair, before lightly kissing Mattie’s lips, as if saying goodbye.  
“Go get dressed,” he whispered.

Mattie couldn’t even remember what room his jeans, underwear, tshirt and Odd Future hoodie were in. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them back. They belonged to someone else, to another life. 

 

 

Albie got dressed a few minutes after Mattie walked away from him, leaving him alone with the dissipating steam and cooling bath. He let the water out of the amethyst tub and tidied up the puddles of water on the floor. He was standing at a picture window as he watched the car that surely held Matthieu Bellamy drive back to the city. He had filmed with a lot of men and women over the years. Some he couldn’t remember, so much of his Toy Boys days lost to a haze. At Ishtar, however, he had developed a companionable rapport with most of his partners. It was only natural, given the intimate nature of the work, that romances would happen, such as a trans male performer named Jaxon Cruz and his girlfriend, Luscious, whom Albie always enjoyed working with. They were over the moon for each other, and it was a privilege to witness. Love did exist, it seemed-but Albie had resigned himself to the fact that it visited some and not others. He wasn’t trying to get close to anyone, anyway.  
But, something about Mattie had shaken him up. It was hard to calm down. He told himself that it was because he hadn’t known that Mattie was an actual virgin, and for that he blamed Alexa. He caught up with her at the edge of the wintry gray lake ensconced in the dogwood grove.  
“What happened back there?” he asked.  
“You gave the best performance of your career. You were so…free,” Alexa said. “I’m very proud of you.”  
“I wouldn’t have touched him if you had told me,” Albie said.  
“Told you, that he’d never had sex before? Mattie knew what kind of art he was signing on to make. He didn’t have any qualms or illusions. He’s pretty dauntless. I think the only thing he’s afraid of is greatness,” she said.  
“What do you mean?” Albie asked.  
“He’s hiding from his potential, and looking for an avenue to explore and express himself,” she said.  
“What better way than porn?” Albie said acidly. Alexa gave him a levelling look that made it clear that his sarcasm hadn’t escaped her.  
“He came to us. He’s an adult, and he signed the paperwork. What exactly is the problem?” Alexa said.  
“You should’ve told me that he was a virgin,” Albie said.  
“I didn’t have to,” Alexa said calmly. “That’s not the agreement that we have, Albie. You know our terms. First of all, you never said that filming with someone who had no prior experience was one of your limits. Second of all, the minute I became your Master and you became my slave, you gave me permission to take you beyond your limits, as I see fit. To help you become more yourself, to make you better by taking you to places you wouldn’t dare go by yourself. I’ve watched you moon over Mattie at the coffeeshop up the block from the office for weeks now, but you were too self-loathing to make a move. So, I seized an opportunity. There’s something between you two. And maybe I want to see more of it, for my own reasons. For my art.”  
As far as she was concerned, the encounter with Mattie had been mutually beneficial. Albie couldn’t lie to himself. Not in her presence, not beneath a quilted gray sky pressing low and close to their heads, clouds loaded with burgeoning snow, the leafless dogwoods shuddering around them and the mirror-like water. All was peaceful, and nature felt calm and still. His anxieties and misplaced anger had no place there.  
“Albie….did you like it?” Alexa asked.  
“Yes, Mistress,” he said. He felt better now that he had admitted that he wanted Mattie, liked being with him….but he regretted being so hard on him, and not telling him his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, again, for hanging in there:)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie meets up with Nathalie; Alexa helps Albie clear his mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for following, everyone! Enjoy:)

Mattie looked up from his laptop when he heard music. Leila, the barista, was enamored of Sam, the obligatory brunette tousle haired, dark eyed coffeeshop folk singer with a plaintive and earnest voice, whose music straddled the line between folk and blues. He also took requests, which often came from Leila. Either they were both actively flirting, or Sam was unwittingly getting an inspired variation of the Cyrano de Bergerac treatment-the woman who wanted him was putting words of seduction in his mouth, getting him to sing them to her. Mattie wished them luck, but also gave Sam a glance to see if he was, or could be, into him: musician’s fingers, an amiable but somewhat distracted smile, dusky skin, messy curly dark hair….  
“Hey, Mattie! I saw this ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ story about the Impressionists. It reminded me of your project,” Leila said.  
“Yeah?” he said, trying to play off that he had just been checking out the guy she was obviously interested in.  
What was wrong with him? Since filming for Ishtar, Mattie had gotten the biggest paycheck of his life but was haunted by guilt. He didn’t feel guilty that he had filmed porn, but he hated the shabby way he had treated Tristen. He had felt like Tristen’s chaste, tender kiss had been a kiss goodbye, one of disappointment and forgiveness. Mattie had ruined things, and hated how he had acted…which only made him think about Tristen more. He thought about how the air felt around his voice, his hands, and how it felt to feel Tristen inside him, Mattie’s body blossoming around the intrusion of his cock, new chambers of his body unfolding, new feelings he had only yearned for blooming in starbursts beneath his skin.  
He’d checked the Ishtar homepage for their scene, but apparently it was still being edited and hadn’t debuted.  
Leila stepped away from the espresso machine. She had light brown skin and appealingly wild, curly hair, brown eyes with a naughty glint, and a curvy figure. Mattie thought she and Sam would look great together. The world seemed alive with erotic possibility after Ishtar, and the Tudor house.  
“So, did you ever notice the lady holding the flowers in Manet’s ‘Olympe’?” she asked.  
Mattie conjured the image of Manet’s “Olympe”, a nude that was famously out of proportion. The nude woman on the bed looked strangely small, out of proportion with the bed she was on. It was yet another of the Impressionists’ deliberate swipes at the conventions of art at that time, the formulaic idealized portrait art perfection that was then the norm. In the foreground of the painting was a woman Mattie had assumed was a servant of African descent. Having black servant figures in paintings was another convention of eighteenth and nineteenth century art, to display the subject’s wealth or interject an exotic touch, a reference to the far-flung colonies of the age of Imperialism.  
“Apparently, she was a woman called Laure that Manet knew, and he painted her more than once. He even did a portrait of her. And Charles Baudelaire’s mistress, a biracial actress, was painted by Impressionist painters, too. Henri Matisse painted black American subjects in Harlem. I thought that was all kind of interesting,” Leila said. “Like, maybe they wanted their art to be inclusive, and diverse.”  
That would be quite the opposite of the servants and exoticized subjects that were archetypal in mainstream art of the time-another stone thrown at the art establishment! It also meant that generations of art historians had been interpreting ‘Olympe’, and Laure’s presence in it, all wrong. Mattie loved the Impressionists’ subtle radicalism, that had paved the way for Abstractism, Dadaism, and modern art in general.  
“I think it is, too,” Mattie said. “The Impressionists were rebels in so many ways. I don’t really have much of a focus for my project, right now. Maybe I could focus in on how they were trying to show diversity in their paintings by including people of color as subjects.”  
“Awesome!” Leila said. “So, how long have you been working on your project?”  
“Um, a few weeks. I just…sort of got distracted with this new job,” he said.  
Before Leila could ask what sort of job, a customer approached the counter. Leila gave him a distracted nod, and turned her attention to the customer and their order. Mattie was relieved. He settled back on the couch as Sam, the object of Leila’s affections, continued to play his guitar.  
At least he had a new focus for his project-people of color, as captured by Impressionist painters. If he could find the “CBS Sunday Morning” segment that Leila was referring to, that would be helpful. He was intrigued-Impressionist art had a reputation for being bland and frilly, the ultimate Victorian relic of a more delicate age, its challenging themes and gritty scenes obscured by its depictions of women with bustles and parasols, or ballerinas in white. What had figures like the flower bearing woman in “Olympe” and Baudelaire’s mistress meant to the artists who painted them? What did their inclusion in the paintings mean? A statement of values, or just a slice of life? For the first time in a while, he felt absorbed in the subject of art. It wasn’t quite like dancing to Tchaikovsky, but it was his life now, and Mattie felt present.  
He finished up his chai latte and packed up his laptop, books, and papers, after tipping Sam for his music and thanking Leila again for the suggestion. He felt hopeful about this angle-hopeful that Professor Alcazar would like this fresh take on the Impressionists, focusing on a little known aspect of their work, showcasing their radical take on artistic conventions. For the first time in nearly a week, Mattie wasn’t rehashing his time with Tristen-the sex, the disagreement when he pressured Tristen to tell him his real name, and the goodbye in Tristen’s eyes that felt so final when he kissed him the last time.  
Mattie looked down at his phone as he walked out of the coffeeshop, and out into the cold. The sky was clear but the air was chilled and dry. Mattie felt cold pinching his ears, nose, and throat-his mom and sister had always chided him for never wearing a hat or scarf in winter. Everything happened quickly, at once-Mattie felt the slippery plain of ice beneath his feet and the sickening certainty that he was falling at the same time that he noticed the violin music. It abruptly stopped on an ugly, interrupted, screeching note around the same time he hit the pavement. He feared for his ankle, landing on it wrong, and doing any further damage. He remembered falling in the empty dance studio, practicing after hours, alone, for his Paris Opera Ballet audition tape.  
“Pete?!” Nathalie said, and rushed over. Her violin was left behind in its case, on the ground against the brick wall of the nearest shop, resting on a nest of loose dollars.  
Mattie looked up. It was, indeed, Nathalie from Ishtar, with her ruby red hair, naughty eyes, and a tattoo of a mermaid on her neck just barely peeking out from her burgundy crushed velvet coat. A tulle rockabilly dress peeked out from the folds of the coat, and she was wearing fishnets and dangerous heels. She was navigating the icy sidewalk just fine-Mattie hadn’t made it three feet out of the door in Nikes. What kind of dancer was he?  
He reminded himself that he wasn’t a dancer, anymore. Nathalie helped him up, and Mattie wiped himself off.  
“Are you okay?” she asked.  
“Yeah, I just wasn’t paying any attention,” he said. “Was that you, playing the violin?”  
“Uh-huh-showing guppies like you around at Ishtar is just my side hustle. This is my office!” she said, gesturing to the street.  
“Or, more like, your stage,” Mattie said.  
At that, Nathalie smiled. “I guess,” she said. “Anyway, that’s how I came to Ishtar.”  
“Your violin?” Mattie said.  
“Uh-huh-I play at events and stuff,” she said.  
“What kind of events?” Mattie said. “Tristen said that there are events sometimes at the house where we filmed.”  
“And how did it go? Filming with Tristen? You were out of there so fast, I didn’t get a chance to catch up with you….which is kind of my job, remember?” she teased.  
“Sorry I didn’t let you do your job. Some guys from the crew were heading back to the city, so I just kind of hitched a ride,” Mattie said.  
He had wanted to get out of there more than he had ever wanted anything, after angering Tristen. Actually, being forgiven by him was even worse than the anger. Because he had felt so close to him when they filmed together, but then he’d ruined everything.  
“Was it that bad? You just wanted to get away?” Nathalie asked.  
Like Alexa, she noticed things. As if she could see beneath people’s skin, or read their minds.  
“No, actually, the filming was great. I felt….like I was apart of something beautiful. I could feel me and Tristen creating something, caught up in the same vibe or rhythm or music or something, like when you’re dancing with someone and you understand each other totally, completely, without words, and every second feels so fresh and spontaneous….that part was great. But, I messed it all up,” he admitted.  
Maybe it was because Nathalie’s job was to help him navigate Ishtar, or maybe he had just held it all in for days, and couldn’t tell anyone, he was giving it all up, now. He had worked beside Salim at Perfume Kingdom, and attended classes, carrying all these feelings….now, he could talk about them with someone who might understand.  
Nathalie listened, with a thoughtful frown. “Pete, if this is all too much for you, that’s understandable. Ishtar is like a carousel. There’s lights and music, you go round and round and every few turns you catch a glimpse of the other people on the ride with you, holding on as it turns. Sometimes, you look at someone in the eye and see that they’re having as much fun as you are. Or, other times, they look sick and you know they’re about to get off, and someone new will take their place. Round and round it goes.”  
Mattie was surprised. He felt like she was giving up on him, and rather quickly, too-like when his friends from dance school had eventually stopped emailing, texting, and PMing as they got busy auditioning for dance schools and companies. When it became clear that he wasn’t pursuing recovery on his ankle to dance again, it also became clear that he was no longer apart of their world. Something about filming at Ishtar had made him feel alive and creative again.  
“That’s not what I mean. I just….I thought me and Tristen were getting along, and then I said something inappropriate,” Mattie said.  
“Like, a joke?” Nathalie asked.  
“No. I asked him what his real name was,” Mattie said.  
“Oh…..” Nathalie said. Then, she sighed. “Well, we do use pseudonyms for a reason.”  
“It was, like, a spontaneous thing! I don’t know! I felt close to him. But, he didn’t react too well. We made up, I think, but…I felt like he dismissed me. Like, he wouldn’t want to film with me again,” Mattie said.  
“Well, you would have to ask Alexa if he’s expressed a desire not to film with you again. I’m not going to lie, its possible. But, why did you ask him? I’m not saying you’re in trouble, but I want to understand why you asked him. What were you feeling?” Nathalie said.  
“Like…..like I wanted more,” Mattie said.  
Nathalie smiled sympathetically, and squeezed his shoulder.  
“Well, Tristen has that effect on people,” Nathalie said.  
“But, he belongs to Alexa,” Mattie said.  
“I shouldn’t have told you the slave thing. Its hard to understand, from the outside,” Nathalie said. “But, I don’t think it impacted his reaction to your question. Mattie, when people set boundaries its usually around an area in their life where they feel they need control. Everyone has the right to privacy, and we respect that. If you’re going to continue at Ishtar, its really important that you get that.”  
“I think I am,” he said.  
Nathalie looked at him, waiting for him to clarify.  
“I think I want to film again,” he said.  
“Even if its with someone besides Tristen?” Nathalie asked.  
Matthieu was about to answer, when he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He had noticed, after slipping on the ice, that his limp had grown more pronounced, the bounce and drag of his first pain-free days of recovery returning, but the pain took him by surprise. It was like a vein of lightning appearing suddenly across the sky, sharp, slender, hot. Nathalie linked her arm around the middle of his back and through his arm, and guided him towards the nearest building. Mattie hadn’t realized how near they were to the Ishtar offices. 

 

“Around here, we don’t like no vampires.”  
“We don’t like no vampires around here.”  
As Albie showered, that one slippery sentence kept turning round, shifting and dividing like the floating dollups in a lava lamp. He didn’t understand it. It was seven words. Why were seven words so hard to remember? The “Vampireville, USA” audition was the biggest chance that had come his way since he got serious about acting. His last job was a personal injury law firm commercial, and before that some community theater work. More television shows and films were beginning to film in the south and Mid Atlantic, and on a good day Albie felt hopeful. On a bad day, he kept rearranging the words in seven word sentence. He focused on the shower, on the hot water and soap, on feeling refreshed and ready for a new day.  
The only time he’d felt at peace at camp was in the shower. The pouring sound of the water drowned out the sounds of the other boys, their inane conversations, their arguments, their masturbation, mutual and solo. Night amplified their noises, but the shower was so loud Albie could pretend that he lived underwater. He was beneath the ocean in a submarine, he would emerge and come back to Denny Salvatore, who would be smiling warmly, happy to see him.  
He blinked away the memories of camp. Even the good memories led back to the bad ones, the counselors shouting in their faces like drill instructors, the sickening food, the image of his mom’s Lexus pulling away as he yelled for her to come back.

Albie got dressed and poked around the loft. What if, he thought, he told Alexa that he wanted to move back in? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be alone, anymore.  
The door opened. Alexa was wearing yoga pants, a black tshirt that read in white letters, ‘This is a Fugazi Tshirt’, and her long hair was in a pony tail.  
“Oh, good. Have you seen my rope?” she asked.  
She didn’t seem surprised to see him in the loft.  
“Something’s wrong with me,” Albie said.  
“Hmmm….I always noticed one of your shoulders was higher than the other. But, you carry it nobly,” Alexa said, and repeated, “Have you seen my rope?”  
“No, I’m serious. My lines, for the ‘Vampireville, USA’ audition, its like one sentence but I keep mixing up my lines,” Albie said.  
“Practice,” Alexa said. “Isn’t that what actors do?”  
“Lex! I’m serious. I need you,” Albie said.  
Alexa sighed. “Glenalbyn,” she said.  
Using his Christian name was the first level of punishment. Albie’s parents had honeymooned in Scotland, and named him after a quaint little village where their rental car had broken down on the way to Loch Ness.  
“You’re ruminating rather than letting the words dye into the fabric of your mind. You’re overthinking the process. Let go. Breathe. And, did you see my rope, since you’ve been here?” Alexa said.  
“Your damn rope can wait a few minutes, can’t it?” Albie said.  
Alexa smiled carnivorously.  
“Someone’s a frisky little bottom under pressure! Strip,” she said.  
“I just got out of the shower,” Albie protested.  
“Strip. Wait for me,” Alexa said, and flounced off to the bedroom.  
Maybe she’d remembered the location of her rope, after all.  
Albie took his clothes off, and waited. The air caressed his body, and the tension of waiting consumed every other thought in his mind. He loved that feeling, like wading into water and feeling the shore disappear beneath his feet, and the water fully embrace him.  
Alexa returned with a spiked wheel that looked like a pizza cutter. Called a Wartenberg wheel, it was a medical device used for neurological testing. It could also be used for other purposes. Albie loved the tension that it might cut him. The little spikes felt like sharp kisses.  
“I do take your concerns seriously, Glenalbyn,” she said. His skin readied itself for the wheel, his pores singing with phantom itches and plaintive tingles, and he flinched in displeasure at his proper name…. “But, I know that you have all the tools to clear your mind all on your own. Of course, I’m gratified to hear that you need me.”  
“I’ll always need you,” he said.  
She smiled. “I know, my precious slave.”  
She ran the wheel over his stomach. Albie breathed beneath the wheel. His stomach moved in waves, undulating up and down as he breathed in, and out. As the wheel continued to roll, his breath synced with the motions of the wheel, and it all felt as natural as night turning to day.  
Then, the wheel rolled higher, and grazed his nipple. Albie’s breath paused.  
“See? That’s your problem. When the unexpected happens, no matter how much you love it, you flinch from it, and you get out of rhythm. Like, this audition, for this role you want so badly. Like, Pete Parker, our friendly neighborhood waif,” Alexa said. “Don’t flinch. Keep breathing.”  
“Point taken,” Albie said.  
“Really? I’m not done making my point,” Alexa said.  
Alexa took the wheel up and down his chest, making detours over and around his nipples. It traveled down his stomach, a sensitive area for Albie. He thought of the way Mattie had caressed him as he sat on his lap, when they kissed. He had been trying to forget Matthieu….Pete, now all the memories came rushing back.  
That, however, was not the point of this exercise. He needed to clear his mind, and focus on his breath. His breath was the water, the river, and he was leaving the shore behind. For a while, Mattie was in the water with him, sunlight behind him, a soft, golden, smiling dawn. Then, Albie was alone with his awareness of his breath and of the wheel’s sharp kisses to the shaft of his penis, the tender, wrinkled skin of his balls, and the flare of feeling as it delicately skimmed his perineum. Even that faded, and he found peace, as if hit had been waiting for him, somewhere inside.  
When he opened his eyes, Alexa was smiling warmly.  
“Let’s go to class,” she said.  
“Yoga?” he asked.  
“Shibari,” Alexa said.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie is exposed to new things; Albie gets a chance to clear things up with Mattie

The sight of Nathalie, in her tulle rockabilly get-up, with Mattie limping along leaning on her, didn’t draw much notice from the few people in the lobby/bar. They barely glanced at Mattie’s and Nathalie’s entrance. She helped him onto a white leather couch beneath a strand of white paper lanterns hung across the ceiling.  
“Are they all hipster ghosts?” Mattie asked.  
Nathalie smiled. “They’re people who take classes here, or rent space here for their businesses and art.”  
“So, they’re not all connected to Ishtar?” he asked.  
“That depends on what you mean by connected. Its not a secret society, Mattie. I mean, we’re not in the Yellow Pages, or whatever,” Nathalie said.  
“I think it would be the White Pages,” he said, but felt a little weak in the face as he spoke.  
“You’re in pain. Let me help,” Nathalie said. “Let’s elevate your foot.”  
With Nathalie’s help, Mattie put his foot up on an ottoman, which regrettably matched the couch. She rolled up the leg of Mattie’s track pants. She closed her eyes, and held her hands around his ankle, just a few inches away from touching him. Mattie wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel, but when he stopped asking and forcing himself, he simply felt peaceful, and eventually a bit sleepy.   
“Whoa-what did you just do?” Mattie asked.  
“Its called Reiki-healing with bioenergy,” Nathalie said. “Do you feel better?”  
“Yeah,” Mattie said. “But, I feel stupid for slipping like that.”  
It wasn’t just slipping on the ice that made Mattie feel stupid. He had been stalked down every corridor by his regret about how he had demanded Tristen's real name. Nathalie had confirmed that he had in fact leapt clear over a taboo in doing so. He was used to feeling a certain ennui punctuated by the harassment of deadlines, but this lingering regret was something else, a new and bitter note. It had nearly obscured the heady pleasures of filming with Tristen. He didn’t like how they’d left things.  
“You’re only human, Mattie. Who wouldn’t slip on ice? Humans have put a lot of time in labor into overcoming anything in nature that can trap them, or prey on them. But, every once in a while, the elements win,” Nathalie said.  
Mattie smiled. Nathalie was smart, talented, and kind.  
“You need to relax,” she said. “It would help your pain.”  
“Its okay, now,” Mattie said.  
“Do you really have to be anywhere, or are you rushing away from the whole concept of relaxation?” Nathalie said.  
Mattie thought about it, and wasn’t sure. ‘Relax’ meant perhaps take a nap, or play around on his cellphone. Sleep, or distraction were how relaxation were usually interpreted, but he could tell that Nathalie meant something more.   
“I guess I could relax. Working and going to school can be a little much, sometimes. But, you know, its just life. This project has been stressful because I didn’t think Professor Alcazar liked my idea. Turns out he didn’t. But…we talked about it. Its cool. Deep down, I know he’s right, that painting isn’t my passion. I wish I could find something that is…its like I keep running into my own questions instead of any answers,” Mattie said.  
Nathalie looked as if she understood, and said, “I could tell you had a lot on your mind. Do you feel any regrets about filming for Ishtar?”  
Mattie shook his head. “I’m half French, remember? I’m not a prude.”  
Nathalie laughed, and Mattie laughed with her. It felt nice to share a lighthearted moment with someone. He also still felt a pleasant warmth around his ankle. He stood.  
“All better,” he said.  
“Dancers really do heal fast,” Nathalie said. “Next stop, Yoga Nidra. We’ll take the elevator.”  
In Nathalie’s company, Ishtar didn’t feel impenetrably cool, like the aloof people in the lobby and the airy trip hop playing mutedly overhead, nor did it feel too elegant in a sinister way, like the Tudor manor where they filmed. He felt like he had an accessible and supportive guide, and beside her mysteries, adventures, and new information unfolded, but didn’t threaten him. They took the elevator, and got off on the next floor. The room that Nathalie led Mattie to looked a lot like a dance studio-the wooden floors, the mirrored walls. It was only missing a piano and a barre. Still, his heart felt flooded with a wistful familiarity. Instead of stretching dancers on the floor and at the barre that wasn’t there, there were people lying sprawled on Yoga mats, looking as if they were in a beatific and restful sleep.  
“I always think it looks a little holier than thou when people start before the instructor arrives. But, you know, maybe they need it,” Nathalie said.  
“I don’t have a mat, or anything,” Mattie said.  
“That’s okay. You’re all you really need,” Nathalie said. “And the extras are in a plastic bin, over there.”  
Mattie selected a mat. The instructor arrived, eventually, as did more students. Mattie lay down on his mat, as instructed, but at first his body felt confronted with all the tension it carried: in his shoulders and neck, from being on his laptop, in his wrists and hands from the cash register at work, in his lower back from sitting at his desk at school and in his lower back and calves from standing at work. He felt slight numbness and stiffness returning to his ankle.  
The instructor, Willow, guided them to imagine a ray of white light sweeping down their bodies, from head to toe, warming and relaxing their body. Mattie imagined sunshine, cloudless sunshine from a happy sky, shining on the top of his head, his face, his limbs, chest, and belly. He began to slip away, to feel not quite sleepy, but thoroughly relaxed. He saw the blue sky and summer blue ocean lapping at the beach from a childhood vacation to Jersey, the Anglo-French island, before his parents split up…before he felt ignored by them as they fought over Celine’s future, or felt pressured to please them both and choose between them no matter how impossible that was. He went back, to when life was simple and kind.  
Mattie woke up to the sonorous chime of a sound bowl. It gently brought him back. He turned his neck, and his eyes fluttered open. The person lying on the mat beside him was Tristen Ludlowe.

 

“First, we relax, then we tie,” Alexa had ordered, and, of course, Albie obeyed. Even though they were trying to transition from Master/slave to a more conventional Domme/sub, Albie still felt safe obeying Alexa. Before Shibari, where they would practice the art that they first learned together, when they first met, she’d commanded that he release the tension from his body in Yoga Nidra.  
“I thought that’s what the spiked wheel was for,” Albie said.  
“Oh, no, I was just trying it out-it just arrived in the mail,” she’d corrected him.  
As the sound bowl’s song faded, Albie looked at Mattie, the very person that he had been thinking of all week.  
“Tristen,” Mattie said.  
Albie’s hand trembled as he stopped himself from touching Mattie’s face. They didn’t really know each other, he couldn’t just touch him whenever he liked.  
“Can we talk?” Mattie said.  
“During class? No, that would be rude,” Albie said.  
“Come on-you know what I mean,” Mattie said.  
“Yeah, I know,” Albie said. “I have a class, after this.”  
“There are lots of classes here, aren’t they?” Mattie said.  
“You have no idea,” Albie said, bemusedly imagining what Mattie would make of erotic rope tying.  
“I’m sorry,” Mattie said.  
“Don’t be. I shouldn’t have been so defensive,” Albie said.  
Willow gave them a softly warning, gently firm look to take their conversation elsewhere, since some students were still in Yoga Nidra.  
“Come on-the loft is on this floor,” Albie said. He and Mattie left the yoga classroom. Alexa would punish him if he was late…but he was curious about what that would entail.  
“Loft? You live here?” Mattie asked.  
“Used to. We can talk there,” Albie said.   
Mattie followed Albie down the hall, and waited behind him as he unlocked the door to the loft.  
“So, what class are you taking next?” Mattie said.  
“Um….a Japanese decorative art,” Albie said.  
“Oh, like ikebana?” Mattie said.  
“Um, yeah, like with ropes instead of flowers,” Albie said.  
“Ropes?” Mattie said.  
“Uh-huh. Knots. Kind of like sailing,” Albie said.  
Mattie smiled. “I feel like you’re hiding something.”  
“And we know how you feel about people withholding information,” Albie said.  
“Damn. I must seem like I have a hang-up about it,” Mattie said.  
Albie laughed. He was glad that Mattie was funny. He had wondered for weeks what he was like, when he watched him at Old Towne Coffee, wondered the little things like what kind of music and movies he liked, if he was smart, if was funny.  
“I shouldn’t have lost it, like that,” Albie said. “About my name.”  
“No, I get it. It’s a big deal. Nathalie explained. I didn’t mean to step all over your boundaries,” Mattie said.  
“Sometimes I defend my boundaries too hard,” Albie said. “It can feel intrusive, when you realize that those walls have come down a little. You’re looking for the first sign of betrayal so that you can crawl back in to where it’s safe.”  
“You must have your reasons,” Mattie said.  
“Yeah, but I’m sick of them,” Albie said. “I can’t tell you my name. I still need that boundary, for right now. But…..”  
He didn’t know what to say after, “But….”. What he really wanted to ask Mattie was not to give up on him. Maybe what had really freaked him out was that Mattie was a virgin before they filmed together. He felt guilty about that.  
As if sensing his regret, Mattie touched his shoulder and said, “Thank you-for being so gentle. You were really kind.”  
“Is it kindness, if you get paid?” Albie joked.   
Mattie didn’t laugh. His face was Dionysian, ancient marble carved into the beautiful contours of an ageless deity, and it was even more beautiful stricken by abrupt sadness.  
Albie realized how his words must have sounded to Mattie.  
“I should let you get to your decorative rope-tying class, right? I’m just glad we’re cool,” Mattie said.  
“So, you’d film with me again?” Albie asked. He needed Mattie to know that he wanted more….more time, to see him again.  
“Yeah,” Mattie said. “I’ve thought a lot about what happened.”  
“Me too,” Albie said.  
Winter sunshine from the picture window fell at their feet, danced over Mattie’s chestnut brown hair, dappling his forest green eyes. He was so beautiful that Albie just felt guiltier for the secrets he knew about Mattie’s body.   
“I’d film with you again,” Mattie said. “I’m a little loopy after that Yoga Nidra class-can I crash here, while you’re at the knot tying thing?”  
“Yeah, sure,” Albie said.  
Mattie flopped gladly on the couch, and looked like he was about to settle in to watch TV for hours. He looked merely young rather than immortal, a kid instead of a god.  
Albie smiled as he closed the door to the loft behind him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Thanks for sticking with Mattie and Albie! This version is more of a slow/burn than the Armie/Timmy version from last year, but we're still going to arrive at a new version of pivotal events like Kinbaku-Bi at the Rosemoor, the Inanna Cruise, and the Island. I hope that the characters' emotions and thoughts feel more deeply explored, and that you are enjoying the journey. Love you guys, Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo,  
> Erato

Alexa gave Albie a pointed glance, acknowledging that he was late and that she was displeased. However, Albie didn’t yet know what form his punishment would take. It would have to wait till after class. Albie looked around-the Shibari studio almost looked like a Yoga or dance studio, except for the heavy wooden beams used for suspension ties. The students seated on the floor were a range of life, like most Ishtar gatherings-some had the sinuous athleticism of Cirque du Soleil performers, others looked like they should be on the back cover of a nonfiction book. Academics, bohemians, punks, Burlesque performers-everyone looked different, but no one was ever exactly who they seemed to be. Albie knew that he sometimes stood out, as eclectic as Ishtar was-that he looked jarringly wholesome. It was why he performed under the name Tristen Ludlowe-Nathalie and Joey used to call him Brad Pitt. He could tell, upon meeting someone, when they assumed that his life had been easier because of his looks, that he had come from a soft life. As soon as he felt the rope in his hands, he forgot everyone else, forgot himself. Its like it was imploring him to put it to use, and he tied to answer its pleas.  
Alexa was meditatively still as they, like the other pairings in the class, practiced the box tie. It was rather intricate, but popular and commonly performed for photographs or live performances. Shibari was having quite a vogue, showing up not just in the fetish world but in interpretive dance, performance art in museum settings, films, and music videos. In its original conception, every knot had a meaning, and part of the thrill came from the shame of being restrained. To be tied was to be taken captive, to be a prisoner. It was an emotional dance of voluntary humiliation and self-control. As it travelled to other cultures, it became less about humiliation and more about stillness, an act of meditation.  
Albie wound the rope around Alexa’s wrists, looping it and then tying her shoulders, around her breasts, her chests, her upper back. If he tied too tightly, along the wrong nerves, he could restrict her breathing, damage a nerve. He had to tie carefully, mindfully, knowledgeably, and she had to remain very, very calm and still. The hemp rope felt strong and earthy in Albie’s hands. It gave off a smell like mud after a brief rain has fallen, and slipped between his fingers as he pulled it. The feeling of it grounded him.  
“Can you imagine tying Mattie like this?” Alexa asked.  
He’d thought about it, and Alexa’s words brought the image back-Mattie tied up in the red, silk blend ropes that were gauche and forbidden by traditional standards, red ropes against his pale skin, leaving pink, abused marks where the rope had lain. Matthieu, Pete, looking like the plundered prince of an ancient kingdom forced to walk in he triumph of a conquering enemy empire…  
Albie told himself to focus. He felt a pique of annoyance at Alexa. Why did she seem to be pushing him, when it came to Mattie? Of course, he knew the answer. There was some vision in her head that she wanted the two of them to realize. Mattie was her muse of the moment, from the minute he walked into the Ishtar office willing to make porn for rent money. Alexa’s life was her art, but it sometimes made Albie feel like she didn’t care. The ghost of the boy who’d slept on bus stop benches in Miami before Toy Boys said, ‘So what?’. No one was obligated to care, or owed anyone else anything. You get what you need, you live another day-such is life. If you don’t look out for yourself, life eats you alive.  
“What’s wrong? You don’t think it would be a good idea?” she said.  
“If you wanna see it so bad, why don’t you do it?” he said. He didn’t want to think about Mattie. They had just patched things up. With Alexa putting these ideas in his head, he felt like he was being tempted to hurt Mattie again.  
Alexa glanced over her shoulder, to see if he was just being frisky or if he was really upset. Even though she was the one being tied, he was still the sub. A good Domme was responsible for their sub’s comfort, and Albie was obviously uncomfortable.  
“Glenalbyn, untie me,” she whispered.  
He’d gotten off easy-his only punishment so far was the use of his ridiculous whole name. She’d whispered so that no one else could hear it. To the other members of Ishtar surrounding them, he was still ‘Tristen’. This little act of consideration restored his confidence in her. She did care.  
Albie undid the box tie, and he and Alexa left the classroom space for the other side of the attic space, a small living room space decorated with artificial sprays of Japanese magnolia in a vase, a vintage couch, and a low coffee table. Music played, koshi wind chimes and falling rain.  
There were small, faint rope marks on Alexa’s shoulders. Albie found them beautiful.  
“Does the idea of performing with Mattie again make you uncomfortable?” she asked.  
“It was just bad timing,” he said. “We just spoke. Like, right before I came to class. He was at Ishtar, I ran into him, and we talked at the loft.”  
“Good. I’m glad you two are establishing a rapport,” Alexa said.  
“What are you planning?” he said.  
Alexa gave him a bemused, enigmatic look, as if he idea that she would tell him before she got ready was slightly funny, cute, and just not going to happen.  
“I think you two are beautiful together. And soon, everyone will get to see that,” she said. “Your performance was very affecting.”  
“Affecting?” Albie said. Maybe, he thought, there was a reason for that. He couldn’t tell if Alexa had known beforehand that Mattie was a virgin before filming. Maybe she had guessed, but Albie couldn’t tell.  
“Yes, it was beautiful. Something about you two…when you’re together, I see something I didn’t think was possible in this art form. Its so natural. I love filming you. But, if you’re this uncomfortable. You should see your face when I say his name,” Alexa said.  
“Then he’s a very effective punishment,” Albie said.  
“Oh? You’ve grown immune to my methods? Should I keep finding new ways to hurt you?” Alexa said.  
“Is that what you’re doing, now?” Albie asked.  
“No, Albie. I couldn’t have devised Mattie. Not by myself. People like him are a collective dream,” Alexa said. “They can be the catalyst of strong emotions from the people who see them. Be gentle with him-he can’t help being beautiful, and real. Go to the loft and relax, Albie.”  
“Can’t,” Albie said. “He’s still there.”

 

When Mattie woke up, the sun was high and bright. It was true afternoon, and he had slept too long. Maybe the perpetually see-sawing balance of work and school was getting to him more than he’d thought. He was researching his project, mostly to keep his mind off Tristen Ludlowe, feeling embarrassed, and being hornier than he’d ever been in his life. At the most innocuous moments, he thought about the alchemy of their joined bodies and the riotous sensations he had felt, how good it felt simply to be that close to someone, how free he had felt being able to kiss and touch someone like that for the first time in his life. Seeing Tristen again had cleared up his feelings that he had ruined things between them by asking his name. Now, the memories were no longer tainted by regret, and shone even brighter, so bright they burned.

Maybe that’s what had prompted the long, deep sleep-he could relax, free from the worries he’d carried all week. Alexa hadn’t asked him about filming again, but he felt like it was only a matter of time, and he was cool with that.  
Mattie wondered if the video was up on Ishtar.com, yet. His laptop was on the bag on the floor, but he felt hesitant to load the website and check. What would it be like to see him and Tristen onscreen together? The memories overwhelmed him sometimes, he couldn’t imagine watching the video, yet.  
But, he had watched Tristen before. Mattie’s hand trembled with hesitation. He almost didn’t reach his phone into his pocket, but the inertia of desire led him on. He typed Ishtar into his browser, and the webpage appeared. In the search box, he typed ‘Pete Parker’.  
The results read, “No results found.”  
Good, Mattie thought, relieved. He wasn’t an official porn star, just yet. Then, he typed in ‘Tristen Ludlowe’. Tiles filled the screens, videos of Tristen with men, with women, with his face tensed in ecstasy as he stroked himself.  
Mattie wanted to watch Tristen make love to someone, the way they had when they filmed together. Each video he selected showed him a different Tristen. In these videos, he went slow and deep with his lovers, or roughly ardent. He playfully teased them, or fulfilled as if it was his mission in life. It seemed that he could be whomever he needed, and adapt. Mattie wondered if anything they had shared was real. His body didn’t care. Sweat bloomed on his face, and his mouth filled with saliva as he skipped swallowing to continue gawking at the screen. Heat crawled along his chest and belly. Mattie reached under his tshirt and teased his nipples, closing his eyes and biting his lip as he held his phone with the other hand. He closed his eyes, and Tristen’s moans rang from his phone. He knew what it was like to feel Tristen’s moans reverberate in his mouth, shaking his teeth, to feel his breath against his neck, to kiss him as they were both on the point of breathlessness, gasping each other’s air.  
Mattie reached into his sweatpants, and grasped his erection. He let go and thought of being in Tristen’s arms.  
The loft’s door opened.  
Mattie was distraught as he saw Alexa and Tristen walk in. Alexa smirked. Tristen looked bemused.  
“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” he said.  
Mattie wanted to disappear. He scrambled to right himself, but Tristen walked over to the daybed where Mattie was.  
“I would say this isn’t what it looks like, but its totally what it looks like,” Mattie said.  
“It looks like you were watching my greatest hits. I’m flattered,” Tristen said.  
“Dude, shut up. This day has been so weird,” Mattie said.  
“Jung theorized that we all have an uncanny valley: the maximum amount of weird we can deal with when we’re awake. There’s a whole other threshold for dream weird, I guess,” Tristen said.  
“So, Pete, were you a fan of our work long before coming to join us?” Alexa said teasingly, her voice silkenly playful.  
Mattie blushed. “I’d watched Tristen before,” Mattie confessed.  
“Seriously?” Tristen said. He seemed surprised. Maybe, Mattie realized, he didn’t know how beautiful he was.  
“Seriously,” Mattie said, and his dark green eyes met Tristen’s flame blue eyes. 

The same gravity around them and between them began to pull Mattie in, the same as it had at the Tudor mansion in the countryside where they filmed. He began to lean in, and up, and felt Tristen move closer. The warmth of his chest grew more palpable as he leaned in closer. When their lips met, Mattie felt the satisfaction of drinking water, at last, after a long thirst on a hot day. He placed his hands on Tristen’s neck. He still wanted to know his real name, but he wanted Tristen so badly, and he had his warmth and his touch, he had this amazing energy between them. For now, that was more than enough, it was everything, and wrapped Mattie up in its gravity.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexa instructs Mattie and Tristen; Mattie gets a surprise when he logs on to Ishtar.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who has been following this version of the story! I began writing YFNPS on a whim,and just threw in lots of things I was interested in: art history, architecture, mindfulness, Tantra, feminist pornography, shibari/kinbaku, ballet, BDSM, etc. I am inspired by Femmedommes like Aleta Cai, feminist pornographers like Erica Lust, and erotica authors like Vina Jackson, and in emulating the things that I found magical, I've experienced magic, too.
> 
> So, if there is a story that's just an idea right now,something that you have been fantasizing about, keep thinking of but feels hesitant or self-conscious to write...I think you should write it! Write that story, and you'll have so much fun. I believe in you:)  
> Love you guys, Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!

Mattie felt breathless as Tristen kissed him. Feeling deliciously dizzy, he balanced himself by holding onto Tristen’s broad shoulders. Once again, he delighted in having this permission to  
touch. Mattie was shy, it had been hard to connect with people when he left the world of dance, and the times he’d made out with people at parties weren’t a deep connection. He’d known even as they kissed that he would probably never see them again, so each touch was just a hint at what was really possible. It didn’t feel like that with Tristen.  
Tristen pulled away to let Mattie breathe. They gasped each others’ breaths. Tristen’s attention turned to Alexa, and Mattie saw why when he looked over. She was sprawled in the chair by the window, framed in winter sunshine diffused through the white curtains, wearing a silky black robe thrown open to reveal the unabashedly displayed bronze flesh of her torso. Her small, pert breasts and stomach, her tattooes, and marks pressed into her skin that Mattie was sure were rope burns, her long legs-Mattie was more shocked than anything to see her this way-she was so controlled, and radiated authority, but nudity was the ultimate vulnerability.  
“Continue,” she said.  
Mattie kissed Tristen. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Alexa touch herself. Flames crawled along his spine, beneath his skin. He realized he liked knowing that she liked watching him and Tristen. He wondered if Tristen liked it too, the fact that they were being watched. Mattie felt free, in a way that he had experienced only in his most triumphant moments in his ballet days. His soul seemed to be leaping and diving back in, again and again, in the waves of wild feeling within him. Tristen’s hands were so warm, tender, loving but also knew their trade, how to wring sensations Mattie had not suspected from his skin and his heart with his subtle fingers.  
Mattie fought the urge to ask Tristen his name again. In each other’s arms, in a deep kiss, their legs entwined, Tristen and Mattie rolled in the midst of the tangled sheets, mimicking the wild waves beneath Mattie’s skin that seemed to be tossing him about. Mattie almost wanted to weep with delight at the feeling of his body meeting Tristen’s in a clash that had all the intensity of antagonism, but was the opposite-the ardent fervor of wanting someone so much, they had both grown frustrated at being housed in separate bodies. They wanted to be one.  
Mattie ended up with his face in the fluffy white pillow. He looked over at Alexa, whose body was misted with sweat, her face engraved with bliss, and her hand on a carved rose quartz toy penetrating the shaved lips of her vagina. Mattie felt conquered, utterly and gladly, by both Alexa and Tristen. He reached his hand under his stomach to grasp his pleading penis, but was stopped by Tristen’s strong hand on his wrist. Mattie delighted in the restraint, feeling it in his shoulders and upper back as well as his arm and wrist as Tristen stopped the progress of his hand, leaving Mattie’s cock unfulfilled between his belly and the crumpled sheets.  
Tristen licked a stripe up Mattie’s spine, and then his tongue darted into the nook of Mattie’s anus. Mattie shut his eyes against the rampantly spreading pleasure, the thrill of invasion. He struggled against Tristen’s tongue, not to get away, but to rebel against the sheets. He came, and could barely hear the noises that spilled from his throat over the roar of the feelings inside, as if the ocean was in his ears.  
Mattie lay in a sweaty, sticky heap, on his belly.  
“Why didn’t you film this?” Mattie asked.  
Alexa didn’t answer, but cupped his cheek and kissed his forehead as if he were her little brother. Mattie felt that he had crossed some sort of bridge, and become more deeply involved in the world of Ishtar. Tristen’s world, a world where people exposed everything to each other but didn’t reveal their real names. He wanted to ask many questions. He wanted to ask Alexa about the faint rope marks on her body.  
“This is our’s,” Alexa said. “If you’re going to live this life, then you have to know what belongs only to you, and remember how to protect it.”  
“I don’t understand,” Mattie said. Talking felt difficult. His lungs were demanding air, and he couldn’t breathe deep or fast enough.  
“You will. You’re going to be in high demand after your scene with Tristen is seen for the first time,” Alexa said “Don’t let the people who admire you steal your energy.”  
Mattie’s head was swimming. He looked over at Tristen, whose body was blushing, skin misted, and whose unsatiated penis made him look like a Renaissance garden god statue, in color. Mattie thought of the way Tristen hadn’t allowed him to fellate him in the amethyst tub. The urge to do so now was as strong as the heaving, airless feeling in his lungs. Alexa looked at him, and saw it in his eyes. She was some kind of mind reader, like Nathalie, and Mattie had just accepted that, by now.  
“Breathe, Matthieu,” she said. His real name, not his porn name. It had been a breach of conduct, even a betrayal, when he asked for Tristen’s name, but she was their Mistress, the keeper of their names. This, it seemed, was part of her lesson in what was art and what was life.  
She caressed his sides, as if massaging air into his body. Mattie breathed deeply, until his body trembled with relish of the delicious air, and he felt his skin tremble from within joyfully as the air suffused his body. He looked at Tristen’s flame blue eyes. Their smoldering depths were full of so many emotions, and Mattie felt the connection that he’d had with him when they filmed together.  
He also saw acquiescence, permission. Tristen was still keeping his name hidden from Mattie, but this, he submitted to. Mattie felt triumphant, but was trying to calm down. Alexa’s caresses continued, and one nurturing hand came to rest on his belly, as he leaned forward to meet the weeping darkened tip of Tristen’s cock. The tip of Mattie’s tongue perceived the warm salt of the pellucid fluid, then the firm circumference of it, like a round, sun-warmed wild plum. Only Alexa’s encouraging hands banished his bashfulness as he sucked the firm flesh, acting more from instinct and desire than any experience-he had none. He thought of Tristen’s searching, ardent tongue, the way he had explored such a private place within Mattie’s body, and tried to mimic those motions. When he heard Tristen’s deep voice welded into inarticulate moans that filled the small, white walled room, he felt less embarrassed, like he was beginning to know what he was doing.  
When he felt Alexa’s hand on his shoulder, he knew, somehow, that it meant to stop.  
He withdrew his mouth from Tristen, and watched as a writhing, sweaty, utterly abandoned Tristen touched himself, just like in the first Ishtar video Mattie had ever seen. Now the sight was all his, real and private. It was just a small fraction of the ownership that Alexa must feel. Mattie was in awe of both of them.  
Beads of fluid splashed Tristen’s stomach in a trail of pearls, and his face was tensed into a grimacing mask as he made a noise that sounded as if it had been ripped from the center of his belly. Mattie delighted in his shamelessness. His pleasure was evident, in his noises, his fluids, and the tension in his muscles. His name was the only thing he was hiding. 

“Go clean up,” Alexa said, to Mattie.  
He took a shower, and inclined his ear beyond the sound of water to hear whatever Alexa and Tristen were doing. He didn’t hear any voices, but when he came out of the bath, in a fluffy terry bathrobe, he could smell spicy incense and delicate tongues of flame danced from the tips of several candles. Alexa was meditating. Tristen held a finger up to his lips, warning Mattie not to disturb her.  
He was dressed, wearing a Wu Tang clan tshirt and jeans, just like when he had popped up in the Ishtar office when Mattie was interviewing with Alexa.  
He gestured to the door of the loft. They quietly left, and took the elevator to the lobby. It was even more crowded with aloof hipsters than when Mattie had entered with Nathalie, to rest his aggravated ankle, and she was nowhere in sight.  
“This isn’t a conventional job,” Tristen said.  
“I knew what it was when I signed up,” Mattie said, sitting down in a chair around the LED fireplace. “What are you worried about? Is it like what Alexa was saying, about the people who admire you taking too much?”  
“Well, they do, sometimes. Its like….she’s the one who’s good with words. I’m not. But the best I can understand it is, its like a magician. If you do one trick, and you’re good at it, people think, okay, maybe their magic is real. So they ask for another trick. And another. The things they always hoped were possible. You’re the one with the magic, so they want you to make it happen. And the more they ask, the more you try to satisfy them, and you get tired, Pete,” Tristen said.  
“It means a lot that you want to protect me,” Mattie said. He was glad that Tristen cared. “Can I ask you something? The rope thing that you and Alexa do…I saw rope marks on her body. Like, all over her body.”  
“That’s an observation, not a question,” Tristen said.  
“I mean…how does it work?” Mattie asked.  
Tristen’s only reply was a bemused smirk. “Do you need me to walk you home?”  
Mattie shook his head. He realized he had left his bicycle back at the café, and should go retrieve it. This time, he knew where to watch out for ice on the pavement. The sky was a dark, inky violet, the color of bruised skin, a winter twilight over Mattie’s head as he made his way back to his loft, chained up his bike in the parking lot, and carefully took the stairs. When he got home, he worked on his Power Point about the Impressionists. Information about Laure, the flower bearing woman in ‘Olympia’ was scant, mostly just that Manet painted her twice, in that painting and a portrait. It was hard to trace the history of people history itself had pointedly ignored in plain sight, but race wasn’t the only factor. He figured he would have had just as hard a time finding out the fate of Degas’s Little Dancer, Aged 14, a poor girl named Marie, one of the anonymous students and corps dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet that Mattie had once longed to join. The dancers, then, were commonly preyed on by the ballet’s patrons, who offered to sponsor the poorly paid young women in exchange for intimate access, like courtesans. The late nineteenth century in Paris was immortalized as a bohemian artistic golden age, but for many people it was no golden age, at all, and in the chaos of urban poverty and modernization, vulnerable people left few traces-except when their form and face was recorded in art. Even then, it was but one illuminated clue leading down an overgrown, faint trail. 

When Mattie felt like he wasn’t going to accomplish any more for the night, he clicked the red x on all the art history tabs he had open. He almost ignored the inclination to check Ishtar. Com, but his hands made the decision for him. Beneath the word ‘New!’, he saw a frozen image of him and Tristen, together in the bed at the Tudor house. The title of the video was, ‘Tristen and Pete’.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Albie's hopes of fitting in are dashed; Mattie accepts Salim's invitation, and sees Misha again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your reads!

Albie poured another glass of apple juice, and was aware of Gill’s eyes on him, not Kandi Kaine, who was talking.   
Kandi was one of the few, the brave-performers who had legally changed their names to their nom de porno. She’d assumed that it would make things easier, when she became famous. Fifteen years prior, she’d hade every reason to believe that she, and other girls, would be able to follow a new path to legitimate stardom forged by Jenna Jameson-from porn to guest spots in films, talk shows, and music videos, a ghostwritten memoir, and from there, who knew? But, fame didn’t come. There were no ‘Next Jennas’, and Kandi had left performing behind for a two year medical assisting program at a career college.  
Like the other members of LAP-Life After Porn-who met in the basement of St. George’s Episcopal Church every Tuesday evening, Kandi pointedly kept her conversation during sharing time to anything but her porn career. Albie wouldn’t say so out loud, but he hardly saw the point. He listened to them talk about their jobs, wrangle with such existential dilemmas as how to face their brother-in-law at Thanksgiving after he borrowed their lawnmower and returned it broken, or gush about what their children wanted for Christmas, but he had assumed that a support group for former porn stars would be a place where they talked about their traumatic experiences as porn performers.  
“So, Albie…” wheedled Sheila sweetly, when Kandi was done, “How’d that audition go for the cable vampire show?”  
“Well, its actually next week. I keep mixing up my lines, though,” Albie said.  
Sheila looked sympathetic. Since leaving porn, she had taken a lot of creative writing workshops-in a castle in Italy, on an offshore island in Scotland, at a dual ayahuasca/writing retreat in Costa Rica, and several online-and she considered herself and Albie the artists of the group. Sheila didn’t discuss the details of her past very much, either, but Albie gathered that she had once done artsy films with lots of tasteful nudity and saw herself and Albie as a cut above the former VHS crowd, like Kandi.  
“Maybe you need to really go there with your character, you know? Experience life in his skin,” Sheila said.  
“Um, he’s a werewolf,” Albie said.  
“Okay, well, his fur,” Sheila said. “Now, I’ve never done your kind of acting, but I have written and performed my one-woman show. I understand.”  
“A one-woman show?” Kandi said.  
“Not the kind you’re thinking of,” Sheila said quickly.  
“Don’t you actors tape your lines on the wall, recite them when you brush your teeth or something? I got real problems,” Gill said, and started talking about his property taxes. Sheila looked displeased-she liked hearing about Albie’s career. He always meant to ask her if she had once wanted to be an actress, a real one, but the members of LAP pointedly stuck to the present.  
Gill looked like the WWE president Vince Mc Mahon, but with a George Hamilton tan. Armie guessed that his heyday had been the Dirk Diggler days, guessing by the way he wore his shirts unbuttoned just so to showcase his chest hair. It was clear that Gill loathed him, but Albie wasn’t sure why.  
The meeting wound down, and while Kandi showed Gill pictures from her son Shane’s school play, Sheila wrapped Albie up in conversation about the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Albie walked down the church’s brick steps with her, to the parking lot.  
“Gill psychs you out. Don’t let him,” Sheila said.  
“Its cool. Sometimes older guys are like that-territorial. Attention is a commodity, so people fight for it,” Albie said.   
“Ooh, I like that line-can I use it?” Sheila said.  
Albie loved Sheila’s obliviousness to how cliché she was-the writer cribbing material from those around her, the former international softcore actress who’d found feminism and Jungian depth psychology, the wild child gone New Age. She performed them all with an enthusiasm so earnest, it made the clichés new again.  
“Sure,” Albie said.  
“He’s just jealous that you were Face,” she said.  
“Huh?” Albie said. “Face?”  
“I shouldn’t tell you this. I guess you’ve noticed that we try not to talk about each other’s pasts,” Sheila said.  
“Yeah, I did notice,” Albie said. “I thought that was kind of strange. What’s the point of a support group, if you don’t talk about what you need support for?”  
Sheila shook her head. “I know. Its ridiculous. But, its because things are so…hierarchal. Kandi did videos and online stuff, which is different from my career. We’ve had a few people drift off from the meetings because there’s just so much judgement over who did softcore, who did hard stuff, who did girl on girl, who worked overseas and who worked in Vegas, or Miami, who stripped or did live shows, and it just becomes a pissing match, judging each other over what you performed and how much it payed.”  
“Okay, so whats that got to do with why Gill doesn’t like me?” Albie said.  
“Because, anyone can look at you and see that you were a star, you were a top, and you were Face. Gill was a stunt dick,” Sheila said.   
“A…what?” Albie said.  
“Before Viagra, the male lead of the film couldn’t be expected to keep an erection for the entire shooting day. Sure, there were fluffers, but sometimes they had to call in a stunt guy to get hard in his place. And they’d only shoot the penetration scene, not his face. You were face, Gill never was, plus you’re a real artist and you’re probably going to be the next Brad Pitt,” Sheila said.  
At the last part, Albie laughed. “I’m nobody, Sheels,” he said. “A few commercials, some plays.” He shrugged.  
“Albie, its all about raising your vibration to attract the opportunities that you want,” Sheila said.  
“You sound like Lex,” he said.   
“Well, she sounds like a smart woman. Maybe we could all have dinner sometime,” Sheila said. He had the feeling that Sheila wanted to see what Alexa would make of her poetry, one woman show, or manuscripts.  
“That would be great. But, you know, she works nights,” Albie said.  
“Oh, right. I knew some very intelligent dominatrices in Amsterdam. They’re always the most refined women. We’ll set something up,” she said.  
Sheila got into her car, and Albie watched her drive away. It was nice that she believed in him, but he hated lying to her. As far as she knew, Albie was an actor, who lived with a dominatrix, but sex work was behind him. Albie considered the art he made with Ishtar as vastly different than what he had done at Toy Boys to survive, but what would Sheila think if he knew he still made porn? He doubted that she, Kandi, and Gill would see the difference.   
“You got some nerve, kid,” Gill said.   
Albie turned around, and Gill was standing behind him.  
“Look, can we just postpone this? I have to get home,” Albie said.  
“Oh, you got some lines to memorize? Because you’re a serious actor, right? That’s what you tell everyone, but we both know that’s bullshit,” Gill said. He sounded really affronted and furious, and Albie sensed that Gill needed this confrontation. It was as if he was a teenage kid who’d found out his dad was having an affair and waited up to catch him sneaking in, to confront him and defend his mother’s honor.  
“Gill, please,” Albie said.  
Gill pulled out his phone. “This group’s called Life After Porn. As far as I can see, you’re still ploughing twinks for pay. You don’t belong here,” Gill said, as Mattie’s and Albie’s moans rang from his phone. The video of Albie having sex with Matthieu played on Gill’s phone.  
Albie’s skin was ruddy, Mattie’s was fair. Mattie’s body looked delicate and sylph-like, and with his legs wrapped around Albie, his head tucked on his shoulder, it was impossible for a few moments to tell if he was a man or a woman. He was sexlessly beautiful, an alchemical creature that was neither male or female.  
“Are you going to show that to everyone?” Albie said.  
Gill didn’t answer, but looked at him smugly, as if he had been waiting for Albie to ask, all was unfolding as he’d scripted it: Albie, exposed, and himself triumphant and in control.   
He thought of what he’d really be losing, if the other members of LAP rejected him: awkward conversation with virtual strangers who might talk about their kids’ report cards and how they’d spent their weekends, but skirted around what they really had in common. He didn’t feel close to anyone except Sheila.  
“Fuck it,” Albie muttered, and walked away.   
He went home, to his Himalayan rock salt lamps and Bruce Lee poster, to Tonto eating lettuce in the terrarium. He was angry not so much as Gill, but at the fact that it had been so hard to belong anywhere since he left Toy Boys. Except at Ishtar.

 

Mattie and Salim stood at the counter, Salim holding his phone out to show Mattie a post. Mattie looked at Salim’s phone, at the post on his Instagram that showed a picture of Salim at the turn tables and the words ‘DJ Kashmir’.  
“DJ Kashmir? Dude, your family’s from Karachi,” Mattie said.  
“Yeah, but, you know… ‘Kashmir’. Its more…like….you know?” Salim said confidently.  
“Yeah, sure, I know exactly,” Mattie said. “So, you said that the tuition increase felt like a sign.”  
Salim nodded. “Things are really starting to pick up. Some of these events I’ve been booking, they’re freaky, man. Rich people pay thousands of dollars just to watch each other fuck and tie each other up,” Salim said, whispering on the off chance that Amir would overhear from the stock room.   
Mattie’s attention was piqued by the words ‘tie each other up.’ It made him think of the rope marks on Alexa’s body. He had asked Tristen just how the ropes worked, but he had refused to tell him. For the second time, an encounter between them had ended with Tristen denying him something. He knew the tang and salt taste of him, the heat and firmness of his flesh, his moans, his warm sweat, his touch-but the things he asked for, his name and the ropes, Tristen withheld. It tinged Mattie’s memories of the pleasure they shared with a still unsatiated yearning.   
“Tying each other up?” Mattie asked.  
“Yeah, its called Kinbaku. Japanese bondage. Its not just like tying someone to a chair, or a bed or whatever-its artsy,” Salim said.  
He typed #kinbaku into the search box on Instagram, and the screen filled with tiles. Mattie scrolled through them. He saw various pictures of mostly slender young women tied with red ropes in intricate knotted patterns. The red ropes held their legs open, behind them, or over their head at angles that looked painful, but their faces were engraved with complete and utter ecstasy. The kind of sensation that roars like a waterfall within, and drowns out the rest of the world. In others, the ropes had been tied to form clothing, like a bustier or a whole dress, and in still other photographs the models weren’t just bound and tied, but the ropes covered their body like a nest of vines that were gathered and tied to beams, suspending them in air and in the grasp of the ropes. The faces of these women was bliss.  
Was this where the ropes had come from on Alexa’s body?   
Did Tristen know how to make these intricate ties with red ropes like the ones Mattie saw online?  
Mattie swallowed, feeling saliva wet his throat which had grown dry. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what had happened in the loft, and now the red ropes presented an intriguing possibility.  
“Freaky,” was Salim’s emphatic verdict.  
“So, you’re DJing at some kind of event for this stuff?” Mattie asked.  
Salim nodded. “Yeah. Its called Kinbaku-Bi. I can get you in, if you want.”  
Salim shrugged like it was nothing, but Mattie knew that his friend needed this. Amir was kind to Mattie, and he thought Salim was lucky to have a dad who had expectations of him, but it was hard on him. He didn’t want to go into the trades that Amir found respectable, nor did he want to settle for being employed at one of Amir’s perfume shops. But, his parents simply didn’t understand why he was drawn to pursue a career in music, which seemed frivolous and fickle to them. Salim was looking for support.  
Plus, Mattie wanted to see Kinbaku, for himself.  
“Which one of you boys would like to go to lunch first? Take an hour, both of you-it’s a slow day,” Amir said.  
“You can go, Matt, its cool,” Salim said.  
Mattie headed for the Thai ice cream stand, ordered a coconut flavored ice cream, watched as it was rolled, then happily accepted it. He sat on a bench, and looked around. He saw the boarded doors of defunct department stores, and the scantily but trendily dressed mannequins in the windows of the fast-fashion shops. The mall was pretty empty, and the silence swelled and rang.   
His phone sounded off twice.   
The first was the largest bank deposit Mattie had ever received in his life. He looked at the message several times. There had to be some kind of mistake. He was sure that there had been an error, and he was afraid if he touched the money it would get flagged, somehow, and he would be in legal trouble. Then, he realized that this was from Ishtar. He hadn’t expected them to pay quite that generously.   
Then, he got a text from Celine.  
“I’m bad,” she texted. “filmed a little of Tatiana and Mikhail’s rehearsal. Shh! Don’t tell.”  
Attached was a video. Mattie hit the white triangle, and the video of Tatiana as the White Swan, Odile, and Mikhail as the prince began to play. Despite the fact that they were wearing practice wear, the otherworldly magic of “Swan Lake” came alive as they danced. They were more than talented and professional, they had a chemistry that was like telepathy. Tatiana was so small and graceful, and Mikhail was the ballet prince of every director and choreographer’s dreams-strong, powerful, but tender and natural in how he handled his partner, in tune with his own body, the music, and his ballerina.  
In short, everything Mattie hadn’t been given much of a chance to master. With his string-bean physique, he was never the prince. He looked with transfixed admiration at them, and especially at Mikhail.  
“Wow!” he texted back.  
“Yeah, and Tanushka’s great, too :),” Celine texted.  
Mattie’s face was warm with embarrassment. Celine had to remind him how ga-ga he’d acted around Mikhail the one time they met. He hadn’t forgotten the dancer, but his life had changed so much since then. He had lost his virginity, for one thing, and filmed pornography…which he had been payed handsomely for. He couldn’t believe that so much had happened, so fast.   
“Come by for lunch,” Celine said.  
“At lunch now. Dinner?” Mattie texted.   
“Takeout?” Celine texted. She was a brilliant dancer, but not much of a cook.  
Mattie texted back a smiley face, and before Celine could answer again he got another text. It was from Joey, and read, “Congratulations. The video went over well. Let’s meet tomorrow to discuss filming again.”  
He knew that he would only want to film with Tristen. 

Mattie finished his shift at Perfume Kingdom, and then headed to Celine’s apartment.  
Tatiana answered the door, moving with spritely grace, and greeted Mattie warmly. Celine saw him and her face lit up. Mikhail was sitting on Celine’s loveseat, reading a book. He looked up when Mattie came in, and his eyes met Mattie’s. Mattie was shamed that he had almost forgotten Mikhail, because the look in his eyes brought it all back: how pliant but electrified he had felt when Misha touched his ankle, the delight he felt at the deep timbre of his voice, and how transfixed he had felt watching Misha dance in morning class and in the video that Celine had clandestinely took. He had still been an innocent when they met before. Now, he had his experiences at Ishtar, with Tristen, which informed his attraction to Misha and gave it a new texture.   
He thought about Tristen, and remembered Misha’s hands on his ankle.  
“Hi,” he said nervously.  
Misha smiled.   
Even on their downtime, dancers spent a lot of time talking about their craft. Mattie mostly listened. Celine, of course, was in her element and beaming. Tatiana was amiable and eager, but her English was not as thorough as Misha’s. He filled in when she didn’t know a word, and was good at keeping the conversation on track. The food arrived, and the four of them settled in to watch “Bird Box” on Netflix.  
“I wanna show you something,” Mattie said.   
The girls were so into the show, they didn’t remark on them leaving. Mattie and Misha went out to the fire escape. The stars were not visible, but the lights of the city were embroidered radiantly against the darkness. The reflections of the lights and lay on the black ribbon of the river in the distance.  
“You’re different, somehow,” Misha said.  
Mattie shrugged, as if he didn’t know what Misha could mean.   
Misha gave him a bemused look, and reached out to arrange Mattie’s dark, curly hair behind his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Mattie and Albie film again, and Mattie sneaks into Kinbaku-Bi


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexa makes her point to Albie about the Life After Porn group; Mattie discovers kinbaku

The city lights were steady strands of white flames, as if strung for a holiday and hung upon the dark. Mattie’s eyes met Misha’s, and he stared into the heathery gray blue until his own eyes pinched and stung with the need to blink, as their faces moved closer. Their breaths mingled, cold steam in pellucid coughs. He didn’t want to blink until he absolutely had to, at the last minute when their lips met.  
He leaned in first. Misha’s lips were dry. He tasted like the white wine they had all been drinking while eating Thai food and watching “Bird Box.” The kiss was brief, but for the whole fleeting duration of it Mattie felt giddy that it was happening, wound up and confused and wanting it still even though it was happening. He tasted ice in the air as Misha pulled away.  
Mattie closed his eyes to breathe. Kissing Misha had felt like a stolen, experimental, giddy thing on both their parts, and he felt ebullient.  
“Where do you feel it the most, when someone kisses you? Besides your lips?” Misha asked.  
He put his hand to Mattie’s stomach. “Here?” he asked.  
“All over. Everywhere,” Mattie said.  
Misha smiled at the goofy, drunk way Mattie said it. Mattie looked back at Tanushka and Celine on the couch.  
“What about Tatiana?” Mattie asked.  
Misha shook his head. “No,” he said, “Everyone thinks so. She is like a sister to me.”  
“I guess everyone assumes because of the way that you dance together,” Mattie said.  
“That’s ballet. We’re give the flesh and blood to illusions,” Misha said.  
“I don’t know-it feels more real than anything else. Since I stopped dancing, I just don’t connect to anything out here. Nothing feels the same,” Mattie said.  
Misha’s eyes acknowledged that this must be Hell.  
“Your sister and Yasmin say that you were good. You told me you weren’t,” Misha said.  
“I wasn’t. They’re just being nice. But, I miss it,” Mattie said. “It was my whole life.”  
“I understand,” Misha said. “It is the only life I’ve known. My mother, that is what she wanted for my sister, Natalya, and me after our father left. She wanted us to be different, to have beautiful lives. What is more beautiful than an illusion?”  
“You don’t love it?” Mattie asked.  
“Its different, here,” Misha said. “When did you know who you are?”  
“You mean…guys? Liking guys?” Mattie said. He was nervous. This had all happened fast. Then he remembered that he had leaned in first, even though the kiss had felt inevitable, he was technically the one who had kissed Misha. Mattie didn’t think of himself as someone with good looks or much talent, so he’d always made a point to be someone with conviction. He had to stand by this moment as it unfolded, because he had chosen it, after all. “I guess I didn’t know until…recently. Not for sure.”  
Things were different where Misha was from, Mattie remembered. Misha’s eyes and the expression on his face said this eloquently. Mattie felt the weight of the fact that Misha had to keep this part of his life secret. He kissed him again, as if he could kiss him long and ardently enough to trade with him or transform his life, to somehow offer him freedom in a kiss. Misha understood, and Mattie felt almost as pliant and gratefully overwhelmed as he did in Tristen’s arms when he felt Misha’s warm, large palm on the back of his neck. His other hand was on Mattie’s waist, gathering him close.   
Mattie closed his eyes.   
Misha pulled away, and gently kissed Mattie’s forehead, and nose, before saying, “We should go back.”  
Celine knew. Mattie could tell by the way she snuck scrutinizing glances his way, when she wasn’t talking to Tatiana. Mattie could hardly concentrate or care about Celine’s anger. Misha had revealed so much to him, a desire and frustration that we deeply personal, and Mattie wanted more. He always wanted more. He knew that was how he had stumbled with Tristen, that first time, when he badgered him about his name. If someone gave a little, he wanted everything, if he felt close to someone he wanted to remove their façade layer by layer and know them completely. Maybe it was from growing up in the ballet. As Misha had said, it was a world of illusions, of eras of the past and enchanted kingdoms, haunted forests, magical beings, idealized beauties and beautiful music. As much as he missed it, now he craved the intensely real.   
Misha and Tatiana went back to their hotel. Mattie braced himself, knowing Celine would start in.  
“What did you do, Mattie?” she said, as if he had broken an expensive vase their mother loved, or eaten a snack before dinner.  
“We talked,” Mattie said.  
“Talked? Sure,” Celine said. “Don’t act like we didn’t discuss this before. There’s just no point. He’s not staying around here. And where he lives….”  
Mattie wasn’t a dunce. He knew the conditions for homosexuals where Misha was from, the oppressive laws and very real and likely threats of surveillance, intimidation, harassment, violence, and imprisonment. Ballet was a high profile art form, and dancers were prominent figures, there, which meant Misha was in a very delicate position. Celine looked at Mattie with betrayal on Misha’s behalf-it was the ultimate sacrilege, to her, for someone to stand in another’s way when it came to dance.   
“If Misha got involved with someone, even if it were over here, what if word got around somehow? His career would be over,” Celine said.  
“This isn’t the 80s. There’s no Soviet Union. I doubt he and Tanu are being followed by KGB operatives wearing Groucho Marx fake noses and eyeglasses behind newspapers on a park bench,” Mattie said.  
“Mattie, don’t be cute. You and I both know that if they are being watched, its by people who answer to something more…insidious, maybe more cruel,” Celine said. “And you talk like it’s a bad caper movie, but it’s possible.”  
“Okay, but don’t you think he knows that? Better than you or I could imagine. I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it. He’s scared all the time, but he wants to be himself. To be free,” Mattie said.  
“And so you liberated him? Nice one, Mattie. Democracy wins, huh?” Celine said acidly. He rarely found himself intentionally on the end of her ability to diminish and mock others. Celine’s eyes shone coldly, and she smiled without warmth when she was like this.   
“It just happened!” Mattie said.  
“I knew you liked him, Mattie. I saw you when you first saw him, and I knew how you felt. I told you, then. Its not a good idea, for either of you,” Celine said.  
Mattie touched his hair, out of frustration, an excess of futile feelings.  
Celine softened, and touched his shoulders.  
“I know everything about you, Mattie,” she said, with love. “Everything. Its okay.”  
Not everything, Mattie thought. If this was how she went in on him for kissing Misha, how would Celine react, he wondered, if he knew about Ishtar? Maybe she would be worried that having a porn star brother would somehow blow back on her career in dance.   
Illusions, as Misha had said. The world they created in the ballet took an internal vow of dedication, and a whole lifestyle centered around perfecting its elements. It was the only life that Celine had ever wanted, and Mattie had watched her grow more distant from and hostile towards their mother for what Celine perceived as diverting her goals.   
Mattie felt suddenly discouraged and shy around his sister. He helped her clean up a bit, then he went home. He felt calm in a way which meant he was trying not to think.

 

Albie told Alexa about Gil. He tried to make it comical-a ‘can you believe this guy?’ moment, but it wasn’t that kind of story and he knew that, deep down. He could hear the falseness of his own voice, and knew that it was a piece of bad acting.

Alexa zeroed in on the loose end immediately. “Why do you bother going to a Life After Porn support group? You still film for Ishtar.”  
They were in the loft, and Albie could still feel Mattie’s lingering presence as if he were a ghost or a shared dream.  
“Yeah, Ishtar is totally different. I needed a place to talk about Toy Boys,” Albie said.  
“The people you describe don’t sound particularly receptive to hearing anything about you,” Alexa said.  
That stung, but Albie knew that it was true. “Sheila,” he offered.  
“She’s an energetic vampire. The whole world is her food, and she consumes, but until she can heal her wounded creativity and stunted sense of identity, she is in no place to synthesize what she intakes into as generous an action as true creativity,” Alexa said, as she watered Ben and Arthur.   
“She sounds like the kind of person who’d benefit from Ishtar. Its all about healing, right?” Albie said.  
Alexa looked at him scrutinizingly, and said, “Did you promise her something?”  
“What? No. I don’t go around inviting Randoms in,” Albie said.  
“Well, good. She’s all wrong. Its important to have an understanding of the sacred,” Alexa said.  
“God, I’ve missed hearing you opine in that profound way,” Albie said.  
“Albie, I think you need to embrace the silence of living alone,” Alexa said.  
“It’s a little too silent. Tonto doesn’t have your gift for conversation,” Albie said.  
“When you start hearing Tonto talk, then we’ll declare this moving out on your own experiment a failure- but, not before,” Alexa said.  
“Those are the ground rules? I have to be desperate for you to take me back in?” Albie said.  
“Albie….this is good for you. Trust me. My innate understanding of what’s good for you brought Mattie into your life,” Alexa said.  
“In other words, ‘don’t sweat the technique’?” Albie said, winning a smile from Alexa. He couldn’t argue-every time he spent any time with Mattie, he felt alive again. He felt engaged with life, and felt the world around him with more depth and texture than before. He had been annoyed that Alexa had seen his crush on Mattie and seized the opportunity to pair them up when Mattie walked into Ishtar…but since coming to the organization he had learned to accept elliptical serendipity.  
“Something like that,” Alexa said.  
“I just thought that would be the place to talk about…everything. Not just Miami, but what led me there. I thought they would be the people to understand,” Albie said.  
“Yes, but you can’t force it. If someone or something is all wrong for us, its better that we acknowledge it, instead of trying to make it fit, and keep wanting what we want from the source we want it to come from. And, you have to understand your experiences first, before anyone else,” Alexa said with a tone of finality, as if she was done espousing advice. If that was all Albie needed to process his experiences, he could just go to talk therapy. She selected a flogger from the selection arrayed on hooks upon the wall. Albie craved compassionately applied pain to help him process his emotions, and something in her needed it to, needed to be the one to bring this mélange of pain and release out of him.   
The ancient Mesopotamian priestesses of Inanna had whipped the young acolytes who stood in for the goddess’s beloved, Dummuzi, during rituals of ecstatic worship, and Eastern European shamans used whips as part of acts of spiritual healing. Alexa treasured facts like these, evidence that what she was doing was part of an ancient continuity. Albie took off his clothes, and then knelt as if praying, his arms resting on the bed where, hours before, they had both ravished Mattie in a lesson in privacy. Alexa tickled his spine with the tassels of the flogger, running it up and down like a paintbrush along a canvas. The minutes stretched, and she could tell by his soft shoulders, relaxed neck, and even breathing that Albie shared her sense of calm. It was like casting a spell, holding the magic, and then being the one to break it. It was all in her hands, she just had to pick the moment to strike.  
Alexa raised the flogger, and struck Albie’s shoulders. The sound of skin on leather. Albie stifled his wordless exclamations like a good slave-and he was, actually, quite a good slave. He didn’t want to be humiliated in a punitive way, or as a novelty. They weren’t playing roles. Alexa hated superficiality, and appreciated honesty and commitment.

Albie’s hands blushed as he gripped the bedding, and stifled his cries as she continued to strike him. The pain blossomed into a feeling more rich and full-bodied than mere pain. In this bouquet of feeling there was peace, there was a hyperreal excitement of skin, there was a slow and loopy quality to Albie’s thoughts, there was no need for thought at all. It was nearly a state of meditation. Only when Alexa stopped did his skin sting, did he feel pain in its simplest form. A creamy herbal smell filled the room as she opened a jar, and massaged his abused, tender, reddened buttocks with grapeseed and goats milk cream, so that he didn’t develop any serious damage to the skin.   
“I don’t think LAP is for you,” she said. “There are other ways to process what happened to you in Florida. But, I know you can be stubborn. I’m going to have to punish you, Glenalbyn, to make sure you know that I’m serious. I need you to obey me at all times.”  
Her words soothed Albie’s soul. He would obey, it brought him peace.  
“Lie down,” she said.  
While Alexa fished around in a drawer, Albie got settled on the bed where he had just knelt. He could feel the ghost of Mattie’s weight by the absence of it, only Albie’s memories attested to the fact that Mattie had been there. Albie put his palm on the sheets as if hoping to feel Matthieu’s lingering warmth. The sheet was cold  
Alexa returned to him. Albie parted his leg to make room for Alexa as she crawled towards him. She caressed his belly, which was dusted with rusty red hair, in a soothing manner, and with her other hand tenderly took hold of his flaccid cock. Albie closed his eyes, remembering Mattie’s slender and trembling hands. Both Mattie and Alexa had the most beautiful hands…She affixed the restraining device, which cradled his penis and didn’t allow him to grow hard until it was removed.  
“The video is doing very well. Joey tells me that Mattie seems receptive to filming again. Would that make you happy?” Alexa said.  
Albie knew the rules of a scene-he couldn’t answer unless he was safewording out, or unless he was given permission. Alexa addressing him like that was a tease, like the stroke of her whip before she struck him.  
“Have you watched the video, yet?” she said.  
Her laptop was on a small table in front of their bed. She pressed a button on the keyboard, and Albie’s and Mattie’s video began to play. Albie was never more conscious of his hands, felt the warmth and blood in them, they felt fidgety as he watched his body and Mattie’s upon the green velvet, Mattie’s archangelic frame so pliant for him and inclined toward him like a sunflower towards light, the contrast of Mattie’s blushing erection and pale skin, his sighs, his moans, the way the tension of pleasure rippled on his angel’s face.   
Albie could do nothing. Alexa kissed his brow. This was his punishment in advance if he decided to go back to LAP. She wanted him to understand that it wasn’t good for him. Sweat broke out on Albie’s brow. Diverted arousal hummed in the nook of his anus, and he felt the tension in his face, and his ribs. His mouth filled with saliva as his breathing grew erratic. Matthieu. Pete. Mattie. He was precious, beautiful, they had been so close but he still felt elusive.   
Alexa played with Albie’s hair, soothingly massaging his scalp as his inability to touch himself while watching the video of himself taking Mattie’s virginity tortured him. On the laptop screen. Mattie clung to Albie, looking like a ruined angel. 

 

 

As much as he tried to focus on work, Mattie still felt downcast. He felt more embarrassed than angry at the way Celine had warned him off Misha. It felt like a reminder that he didn’t belong to their world, anymore. Misha had sounded nothing like as content as Celine had always been with dancing. He wanted something more, something beyond the enchanted scenes that dancers painted, which he had called illusions. Mattie looked around, at the shoppers at the mall. Was this real life? The advertisements on posters in shop windows invariably showed well-dressed, laughing people, who looked overjoyed by whatever it was they were wearing or had just bought. The people shopping didn’t seem close to deriving that kind of joy-if anything, they were in a state of anxiety that the things they wanted weren’t available, affordable, or the same as in the pictures, and exhausted by all the effort.   
What was real? When Mattie was with Tristen, he had felt an immediate, intense intimacy like nothing else he had ever experienced with anyone….but in reality, he didn’t know his real name, didn’t have his phone number. They’d had some nice moments, and some tense moments, and Mattie’s nights and mornings falling asleep or waking up alone were a somewhat hazy and rapidly changing montage of sensual memories, of the burn of Tristen’s cock, the softness of Alexa’s hands, the timidity of Misha’s lips. Mattie felt a little wired, the world looked different and he had questions he hadn’t before.   
Maybe that was why he hadn’t watched the scene yet. Everything was so real, or it was an illusion, and he wasn’t sure how watching it all would make him feel.   
“You okay? You’ve been quiet. Its creepy,” Salim said.  
“I’m good,” Mattie said. “Its just a slow day.”  
“Yeah, I’m so not into this,” Salim said. “So, that thing I told you about? Its tonight. Are you still up for it?”  
“Oh, yeah, rich people tying each other up. Freaky shit. Sure, why not. I’m guessing I’m not allowed to take pictures?” Mattie said.  
“I would think not,” Salim said darkly, as if the spectre of his getting fired breathed between them. He really wanted to be a successful DJ.   
His earnestness alone made Mattie want to go to this event to support him, but he also had a feeling that the tying Salim was talking about had something to do with the class Alexa and Tristen had taken at Ishtar. He would never forget the disturbing beauty of those rope marks pressed into Alexa’s skin, like the faint styrations of ancient pottery. It was as if she was an object of art. Had Tristen done that to her, with ropes? He wanted to surreptitiously steal this piece of them. Their lips and hands and eyes haunted his skin, made him feel sensitive beneath his clothes. 

“Dude, I’ll send you the e-invite thingy,” Salim said, as if he had just remembered it.  
Since Amir wasn’t there, neither of the boys were concerned about having their phones out at the counter of Perfume Kingdom. All the mall shop attendants basically played around on their phones until a customer asked for help.   
The email entered Mattie’s inbox, and Mattie opened it. In white calligraphic script, were the words “Kinbaku-Bi: The Beauty of Bondage.” In the center of a bright light was a small woman tied in red ropes. The ropes criss-crossed her body almost like a web held together with knots, holding her body bent and open, exposed at an angle that should be painful, but her face was engraved with bliss. In the shadows of the bright light that bathed her was a figure in the corner, a man, presumably the one who had tied her.  
This, then, was at least one of Tristen’s secrets, and Mattie felt a thrill of victory along his spine that he possessed at least one of them.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Albie and Alexa receive an unexpected offer; Mattie spends time with Celine, Misha, and Tatiana, then arrives at Kinbaku Bi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, Beloveds!

Even when Amir wasn’t around, Mattie had such esteem for him that he tried to adhere to his rule about phones at the counter. However, he and Salim took a deepdive into posts and videos about kinbaku and shibari. It felt forbidden to imagine Alexa tied up like that. She was the director of Ishtar’s films, and seemed to have a senior administrative position within the organization-why would a powerful, free woman consent to being tied up, in an elaborate web of knotted ropes, by someone she considered her slave?  
Mattie couldn’t concentrate. Women with their pleather bags and riding boots, big gold hoop earrings, tattooes, piercings, and tshirts with pictures of Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur embracing in stills from “Poetic Justice” came up to buy Juicy Couture and Kim Kardashian fragrances, and anything like product knowledge either flew out of Mattie’s head or out of his mouth in a jumble of things he’d thought he’d known well. His mind was on the way his skin felt hot and pliant beneath Tristen’s warm hands, and the knowledge that video of them having sex, Mattie’s first time, was out there being played by someone stealing a moment to dream. He could almost feel the video being played. It wasn’t like someone walking over his grave, more like someone tapping his soul with their fingertips.  
Tristen and Alexa had touched his soul, with their combination of presence and enigma. They had given him more, made him feel more than anyone else, and also left his questions unanswered. Ishtar was a heady dream.  
Salim seemed distracted, too, even when girls tried to flirt with him, which was often. Stage fright? More like excitement, Mattie figured. He was getting a chance to do what he really wanted to do, but he was still anxious about DJ’ing at Kinbaku-Bi.  
Mattie’s phone rang. He went into the stockroom.  
“Hey, are you free tonight?” Celine asked. She sounded out of breath but peaceful. Mattie could just imagine her in practice tights, a leotard, doing some after-practice stretches and playing with her long, heavy hair, misted with sweat and settling after being bound with a scrunchy.  
“Um, not really. Salim is DJing at this thing, and I’m gonna be moral support,” Mattie said.  
“That’s probably late, right?” Celine said.  
“Yeah…” Mattie said tentatively. He was surprised she wanted to hang out, after blessing him out about kissing Misha. It was a mad thing to do, and he would have been embarrassed even if Celine hadn’t said anything. Misha was in the U.S. to dance, not to get close to anyone, and Mattie knew that.  
“We’re taking Misha and Tatiana to an ice show at the mall. Kind of corny, I know. But, you know, maybe it could be cute. I don’t know, Tatiana seems strangely excited about it. I think she really wanted to be a figure skater instead of a ballerina, who knows?” Celine said.  
“And, Misha’s going to be there and you want me to come?” Mattie said.  
“Maybe I went a little hard about the Misha thing. You’re young, and figuring things out. Kids experiment with whoever is around,” Celine said.  
Mattie was mortified. She made it sound like he and Misha had been playing “seven minutes in Heaven” or “show me your’s, I’ll show you mine” at a tween birthday party.  
“Celine, are you trying to read me or apologize to me?” Mattie asked.  
“I’m trying to be your sister,” Celine said. “Look, I freaked out. Misha and Tanu being here is kind of important. The only thing that happens in this company is ‘The Nutcracker’. Every year, that’s our high point-the freaking ‘Nutcracker’. The rest of the year, its wind in the willows. It’s a glorified children’s theater. But, maybe that could change. And, maybe that could lead to something.”  
“Like, auditioning for bigger companies, in better cities? Misha couldn’t say a lot about his situation at home, but I think that one more person looking at him like an asset instead of a person is the last thing he needs. Are you his friend, or just another handler?” Mattie said.  
“Asya is a physical therapist, not a handler,” Celine said.  
“Don’t be naieve,” Mattie said.  
“Naieve? Is that what you call it? So, like, what do you call kissing strangers?” Celine said.  
“Sure, let’s go to an ice show,” Mattie said acidly. “Since this is going so great..”  
Celine sighed. “Okay, this ended up being a schizophrenic narrative. I’m pissed at you, I wanna hang out with you: we’re family, can’t both be true?” she said.  
“I guess that’s the definition of family,” Mattie said.  
Celine laughed, with relief. “Yeah. That sounds right. So, seven?”  
“Seven, at the mall that’s a lot nicer than the mall where I work?” Mattie said.  
“Uh-huh. The open air one with the koi pond. And the ice rink, obviously. I love you, Mattie. And I understand. Sometimes we love people and things we shouldn’t,” Celine said.  
Mattie felt an arrow enter his stomach, a sword pierce his heart. She was absolutely right. He loved Ishtar, he loved Tristen and Alexa, but it was so sudden and secret. Maybe he had been tense around Celine because he was keeping this secret from her, all of it, and it was threatening to burst from his skin. Who ever fell in love or found some new chamber of their own self and didn’t want to climb a roof and cry to the world about it? 

 

Mattie wasn’t at the café. Alexa had felt like getting out of the office, so she was clicking away on her laptop, wearing big, black glasses and a black anorak over Yoga clothes, sitting in a big chintz chair with her feet up on the wooden coffee table. She must’ve looked to the other patrons like a freelance writer banging away at an article for a client. No one ever could have guessed that she was a feminist pornographer. Albie sat beside her.  
“Looking for him, aren’t you?” Alexa said.  
“Just wondering what’s taking our order so long,” Albie said.  
“Sure,” she said.  
“What? You think I’m bullshitting you?” Albie said.  
“I think you’re horseshitting me,” Alexa said.  
“What’s the difference?” Albie said.  
“None. I just had to reassert that I’m always right,” Alexa said.  
“Right. I’m also not allowed to lie to you,” Albie said. “So, how could I possibly be doing so?”  
“Just let yourself feel, Glenalbyn,” Alexa said. “I could see at the time how intense filming was, with Mattie. He’s special, isn’t he?”  
Albie sighed. He looked around at the café patrons. No one was paying much attention to him, or Alexa. She was a small woman with glasses, and as for Albie, he knew that in the right light there was something nondescript about him. He had the sort of wholesome looks that disappeared, at times, after the initial scan in which he was judged ‘handsome’. He could’ve been an operative in the early days of the CIA, the sort of blandly amiable fellow who carried out assassinations with a fountain pen. The people drinking their coffee were paying more attention to Sam the folk singer’s spirited rendition of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. Layla the barista seemed especially impressed.  
So, it wasn’t the fear of being overheard that had him feeling freaked out and hesitant about talking about Mattie. He just felt like it was too big to put into words how Matthieu affected him, and just what it was about him that did so. In the emerald velvet bed, in the amethyst tub, in the loft where the sunlight shone on the winter white walls like sunshine bouncing off the ocean and gracing the belly of a shell….in every place and every time he had touched Matthieu, he felt a door unlock within himself to a hidden chamber. The feelings that lived there were a deluge with nothing to flood-there was no channel to hold it, and they made his life seem somehow dissatisfactory and heightened.  
“Don’t be afraid to feel good, Albie,” Alexa said. “Are you a better person when you feel bad?”  
“What do you mean?” Albie asked.  
“It’s the American Protestant lie of four centuries, the Puritan legacy-when you are slogging it out at the aspects of life that feel like duty, shutting off your own response to what brings you pleasure of any sort, that you’re a better person. You go to Life After Porn because its not easy. Acting doesn’t come easily to you. You’re good, but its not easy. So, you’re satisfaction derives from the effort you feel like you’re putting out. It makes you the perfect slave,” Alexa said.  
Albie’s body hummed at being complimented by the woman who owned him. He was sure he was turning rose beneath his clothes as the heat of gratification diffused along the surface of his skin.  
“But, not everyone you meet wants a slave. And, for your own sake, you should learn to accept what comes naturally,” Alexa said.  
“Yes, Mistress,” Albie said.  
Alexa stroked his cheek, and her fingertips rained along his chin. “Not in public,” she whispered.  
“Mattie’s not like me. He’s vulnerable because he’s figuring things out, but even when he’s completely open like that, it’s in a fearless way. I’m not fearless-I’m fucking terrified,” Albie said.  
Alexa continued to stroke Albie’s face.  
“You’re afraid to connect with him. He’s so open and vulnerable, that the possibility of sharing a real, and deep connection with him feels almost inevitable, if you let it. But, you’re still afraid that something inside you that you consider ugly will come out of if you open up,” Alexa said.  
“Do I have to open up to anyone but you?” Albie said.  
“Yes, of course you have to find someone besides me to trust. But, above all, you need to trust yourself,” Alexa said.

Layla called Alexa’s name for their coffee order. Alexa went to fetch their drinks, and while she was gone her phone rang. She took the call, mostly nodding and listening with a pensive look on her face while the other party talked. She hung up, and Albie took the drink tray to help her out.  
“Well, interesting development,” he said.  
“What’s up?” he said.  
“It seems the Kinbaku event isn’t exactly going off without a hitch,” Alexa said. “Cedric and Beth were scheduled to perform.”  
“Yeah, well, they’re very in demand these days,” Albie said.  
“Popular demand will have to accept a substitution. Cedric was…injured,” Alexa said.  
“Is it serious? What happened?” Albie said.  
“He was injured by Beth,” Alexa said.  
“Knife play gone wrong?” Albie asked.  
“Lover’s quarrel,” Alexa said airily, as if it was inevitable. Cedric was chronically unfaithful, Beth was volatile. It was usually lovable in a Harley Quinn sort of way, but this time it seemed things had gotten out of hand.  
“So, who’s the substitute?” Albie asked.  
“You. I hope you didn’t have an acting workshop or an ill advised support group planned for tonight,” Alexa said.  
“Class is Friday, Life After Porn is….never again,” Albie said.  
“Glad to hear. You’re going to be tying tonight at the Rosemoor,” Alexa said.  
It was, Albie knew, a command, not a request. 

“Only if you’ll be my bunny,” Albie said.  
Alexa smiled. “Who else? Well, we’ll have to prepare something. This is rather short notice, to say the least.”  
“Oh? Do you have to move some things around?” Albie asked.  
“Are you asking about my personal life outside of our arrangement? Because that would be strictly against the rules,” Alexa said.  
“Then that is so not what I’m doing,” Albie said.  
Alexa looked satisfied with that answer, and said, “Albie? Take this.”  
She reached into her bag, and handed him a small, raw rose quartz crystal.  
“Keep your heart open. Not just to Matthieu-just to new things that could be good to you. Rumi said, ‘Your boundaries are your quest,’” Alexa said.  
“Thanks, Lex-I’ll remember that,” Albie said.

 

Since Mattie knew how much questions about France always bugged him when he and Celine returned to school from summer visits, he usually refrained from asking a lot of questions, those compare and contrast ‘Do they have x in your country and do yz there like we do’ questions that people ply foreign exchange students with. He had tuned out of the conversation as he, Misha, Tanushka, and Celine walked through the “fashion park”, a mall designed to look like a little European village with a cobblestone plaza and brick folly towers. He realized that Celine was explaining the tradition of shopping mall Santa Clauses. Tatiana was animatedly explaining to Celine Father Frost and his granddaughter, Snegurochka, who delivered gifts to children on New Year’s Eve.  
Mattie and Misha hung back a little, walking side by side. Misha’s shoulder brushed his. They looked over at each other, meeting eyes to gaze whether one or the other was going to look away and keep avoiding each other.  
“Do you want a pretzel?” Mattie asked.  
Misha shrugged gracefully.  
“We’re going over there for a minute,” Mattie told Celine.  
“We only have a few minutes,” Celine said.  
“There’s no Pretzel World in St. Petersburg, and I wouldn’t want Mikhail to miss an American culinary gem,” Mattie said.  
Misha’s eyes were bright with laughter, and Tatiana laughed. Celine hated being outnumbered, but she relented with a huffy, “Whatever.”  
“Bring us pretzels!” Tatiana demanded, and went back to telling Celine how Snegurochka became the snow maiden. She even did different voices for Father Frost, Snegurochka’s parents, and her bratty stepsister, like a parent reading a bedtime story. Mattie liked her childlike vacillation between shyness and boundless energy and unabashed creativity. She was eighteen, and very excitable.  
“Tatiana is so different than people think,” Mattie said.  
“What do people think?” Misha said.  
“Nothing bad. Onstage, she just seems really focused and mature,” Mattie said.  
“She’s so happy to be here. Sometimes I think she doesn’t really want to go home,” Misha said.  
“Does she have her reasons for that?” Mattie asked.  
Misha looked at him as if gauging what he could mean by that. Mattie was surprised, but chalked it up to feeling protective of Tatiana.  
“I’m just, like, concerned. Sorry,” Mattie said.  
“I guess we both have reasons. Maybe,” Misha said.  
“You definitely have a reason,” Mattie said.  
“It’s not an issue. I make sure that its not,” Misha said.  
“So, you never….get to know anyone?” Mattie asked.  
“Maybe once, or twice, it seemed like there was someone who could be interested. Or interesting. But, its not worth it,” Misha said.  
“What would happen?” Mattie asked.  
“Nothing will happen. I don’t usually do things like that,” Misha said.  
“So, you regret it?” he asked.  
“No,” Misha said. “You have pretty lips.”  
“Dude!” Mattie said.  
Again, Misha shrugged.  
“I’ve only kissed Tatiana. And that’s like kissing a little cat,” Misha said.  
“Whoa…was that your first real kiss, ever?” Mattie said.  
“The rest were ballet kisses, and nothing in ballet is real,” Misha said. “Its sort of funny, afterwards, to kiss someone who’s just your friend, or its like you are both under a spell and you’re transformed, for a little. But, you were a dancer. You know.”  
Mattie shook his head. “No, I was never a lead,” Mattie said. “If you don’t go back…will that be bad for you?”  
“Well, not if I don’t go back,” he said.  
Mattie realized his face, which was always too expressive, must’ve betrayed some frustration, because Misha looked at him with brotherly bemusement.  
“At least try to sound like you give a damn, sometimes,” Mattie said.  
“I give a damn. I just don’t know. There can be a lot of violence, sometimes, you know, when people find out someone is this way. And I was so afraid for a long time, it was like a poison. Only when I was dancing, did I not feel it. Then, it came back, like a bird flying in. One day, it was just gone. I don’t know what happened. I’m really not afraid anymore,” Misha said. “Its easy to talk to you.”  
“Because we kissed?” Mattie asked.  
“Because Americans are nosy and talk about feelings a lot. It makes things sort of easy,” Misha said.  
“I’m glad I was your first kiss,” Mattie said.  
He thought of Tristen, the way he had been angry that Mattie hadn’t told him that he was a virgin. He knew that it was different, that Tristen had been angry for professional reasons: Mattie’s first time having sex was an intimate moment that had intruded on the scene they were filming, and Mattie conceded that both he and Alexa should have said something. But, he didn’t feel tricked by Misha. He felt honored, and close to him. Because of the restrictions and prejudices of his homeland, Misha didn’t seem to realize that with his beauty, he could have anyone. He had been hiding for so long, but had let a little light in and let Mattie in, too, that moment in the kitchen, and that mattered to him.  
“If we kissed here, what would happen?” Misha asked.  
“Probably nothing. I mean, it’s a pretty progressive city. There’s a couple of gay bars, but I haven’t been to them. I’m not really into that. But, you know…I think it would be OK if we kissed here,” Mattie said.  
Misha nodded, taking this information in, maybe making comparisons with stories he had heard, things that had happened where he was from.

They caught up with Tatiana and Celine and took their seats. Since Christmas had passed, the theme was more ‘winter’ in general. Tatiana seemed particularly in awe. Mattie watched the ice dancers, whose musculature and physicality was so similar to ballet dancers. He felt a vestigial burn and flex in his muscles, as they remembered how it felt to move in a dance. Colored lights played on the glacier blue ice sculptures decorating the ice, and on the dancers’ costumes, painting them various colors, auroric violets and greens, perhaps meant to convey light hitting icicles and spun into rainbows. The final color was a softly radiant gold, perhaps meant to convey the light of spring waiting at the end of winter’s long, dark nights. The music was apollonian, and rippled with light, too.  
After the ice show there was a meet and greet with the dancers. Tatiana talked animatedly in Russian with a brunette ice dancer with appealingly thick eyebrows and a beautiful smile.  
“Aww, I think she’s got a crush,” Celine said.  
“She’s too excitable,” Misha said.  
Tatiana came back to them, and said, “He’s moving to Idaho! But we just met!”  
“Don’t worry, there’s always social media,” Celine said. Mattie could tell she was pleasantly baffled at how Tatiana seemed to capriciously wear her heart on her sleeve. It wasn’t Celine's way.  
“What’s his name?” Mattie asked.  
“Grigori,” Tatiana answered.  
“He’s got a great ass-guys who figure skate always do,” Celine appraised. “So toned, and perky…”  
“Come on!” Mattie said.  
“What? Why is it shocking when women talk that way, but guys do it all the time?” Celine said.  
“Its not that, its that you’re my sister!” Mattie said.  
Celine rolled her eyes.  
Mattie felt like they were back on track after their mini-argument about Misha. He still felt guilty lying about Ishtar. He and Celine used to share the same world, ballet, but now life was taking him firmly in a different direction. Despite the twinges of muscle memory that he had felt while watching the ice show, he couldn’t pretend any longer that he was just taking a break from dance-it just wasn’t apart of his life, anymore.  
Celine dropped Tatiana and Misha off at their hotel.  
“Hey, is everything okay? I mean, I saw you talking to Misha and I wanted to, like, give you guys a minute. How did it go?” Celine asked, as they drove.  
“He told me a little bit about what its been like for him, you know. That was it. He was really open, which surprised me. Aren’t Russians super private?” Mattie said.  
“People aren’t generalizations and stereotypes. The whole point of cultural exchanges is so that we can learn that we’re all more alike than different,” Celine said.  
“I was just saying…” Mattie said.  
“You are so cute when you’re wrong, you know that?” Celine said. “I don’t know, maybe some cultures are more private than others, but we all open up when we meet someone we feel like we can trust.”  
“Do you think its possible to like someone and still not be able to trust them?” he asked, thinking of Tristen, and the way he wouldn’t tell him his real name, or about the art of shibari.  
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you be able to?” Celine said. “And, anyway, how would you know they like you if they don’t seem to trust you?”  
“I think I met someone. Not Misha. But, they have secrets,” Mattie said.  
“I know they say everyone has secrets. But, I don’t think that’s true. I don’t have any. Secrets mean that you’re dividing your life into what you can show people and what you can’t,” Celine said.  
“And, what’s wrong with that?” Mattie said. “Don’t we all deserve privacy? I mean, you wouldn’t want someone to watch you in the shower, or when you’re sleeping, right?”  
“Those things aren’t secrets. You know what I mean. I mean, like businessmen who visit dominatrixes on a trip out of town, or someone cheating on their spouse, a prostitute housewife like that old French movie, something like that,” Celine said. “People like that are lying to the world, because they want to be seen one way in public and do totally different things in private.”  
“The Japanese say that we have three faces. One the world sees, one only we see, and one no one ever sees,” Mattie said. “Maybe people are just made that way.”  
“I don’t know. Then where does being consistent and honest come in?” Celine said.  
“Maybe we’re all too complicated to be honest about everything,” Mattie said. “Some things only one other person would understand, some only you could understand.”  
“Well, cut the existentialism. Back to this person who likes you but doesn’t trust you. What happened?” Celine said.  
“He has boundaries,” Mattie said.  
“Then find someone else. I know you, and you’re open. You’re so open it scares me. But, just when I think you’re going to be crushed by something, you show me you’re stronger than I realized,” Celine said. “You need someone who’s going to respond to you, not someone who’s going to make you chisel them out of stone.”  
“Its not really serious, anyway,” Mattie said.  
“Good,” Celine said. “You should focus on school.”  
“Yes, Mom,” Mattie teased.  
By the time Celine dropped him off at the lofts, Mattie was feeling good about the evening. He was looking forward to Kinbaku-Bi, excited to go deeper into the labyrinth of Ishtar. He had a little time to check emails and study. Upon opening an email from Professor Alcazar, he read that the Professor liked his idea about analyzing how women of color had been portrayed by the Impressionists, but he should widen his net to how they had portrayed women of different classes: upper middle class French women, women of color, and women of the nightlife and Bohemian underworld like Degas’s ballerinas, Manet’s bartender at the Folie-Bergeres, and Toulouse de Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge can-can dancers.  
This made sense to Mattie, and he didn’t feel like the Professor had been harsh or critical. In fact, elaborating on Mattie’s idea and tweaking it to make it fuller seemed more like a sign of respect. He decided to take the suggestion. The first idea he had was to compare Toulouse de Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge dancers to the Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from Japan that had inspired him and other French artists of the period. The colors and lines of Ukiyo-e had inspired the Impressionists, but perhaps their subject matter had, as well. Prostitutes and actresses had often been the subjects of European painters because of their place in society for much of the 18th-early 20th century-liberated from the domestic sphere, they were the only women who had the freedom to mingle with men of various classes, including artists. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints depicted what the Japanese called the floating world-the ephemeral world of earthly pleasures to be found in the night life of Edo, and its subjects were often oiran, courtesans. Mattie made some notes on the possibility that the colors and lines of the Moulin Rouge posters were meant to depict the can-can dancers in a way that echoed the Ukiyo-e oiran.  
He received a text from Salim that read, “Dude, you ready? Long drive.”  
“What should I wear?” Mattie texted. Funny that he had only just thought of it, but there it was: what do you wear to a bondage party?  
Asterisks appeared on the phone screen, and then the words, “Nathalie will take care of it.”  
Nathalie was a common name, Mattie didn’t make any connection at first. Then the knock on his door came. It was Salim, in a mesh shirt, leather pants, and a bit of makeup, like an 80s New Romantic singer, or a kinky version of one of the rebels of Zion in “The Matrix”, accompanied by Nathalie, from Ishtar.  
She was wearing a red satin boustier, a silky black handkerchief skirt, lacy black fishnets, and, incongruously, lowtop Chuck Taylors, and in her ruby red hair a fascinator with a shell cameo cradled in black lace. She looked at Mattie with brilliant bemusement.  
“Well, Salim, this is your friend?” she said. “Somehow, he reminds me of that kid who plays Spiderman…”  
“Is it cool? I shared the invite with him,” Salim said.  
“Which makes you his plus one,” Nathalie said. “I guess its fine. Just don’t stray from the path, accept any gingerbread from witches. Well, we’ve got a long drive to the mountains.”  
“Mountains?” Mattie asked. He assumed that the event would be in the mansion where he had filmed. Maybe he had wanted the symmetry.  
“Yup. The Rosemoor. You ever seen those commercials? ‘It was a different time, we lived at a leisurely pace and savored the moment. It was last night…at the Rosemoor.’ Yup, that Rosemoor!” Nathalie said. Her voice was full of excitement, like the bubbles that hover briefly on the surface of champagne.  
Mattie was surprised. The Rosemoor was a Gilded Age estate in the mountains built by a legendary American industrialist, that was now a luxury hotel: the kind of place that had a roof-caressing Christmas tree laden with candles at the holidays, the kind of place where the de facto Southern aristocracy, descended from Pocahontas and John Rolfe, Confederate generals, and signers of the Declaration of Independence held their weddings. It wasn’t the obvious choice for a Japanese bondage art event. Mattie wondered just how Ishtar got by and how far it went.  
“Sounds exciting,” Mattie commented.  
“Oh, it will be. Salim, honey, why don’t you go keep the car warm?” Nathalie said.  
Salim obeyed swiftly, but gave Mattie a look that said, ‘Be cool, you’ll be all right.’ He was gone, and Mattie was left alone with Nathalie. She had been friendly and sweet so far, but her eyes had their own edition of the strength that he had seen in Alexa. He had no doubt that she could set him straight if he was in trouble, now. The possibility of it writhed beneath his skin, jumpy anticipation that was almost like arousal.  
“Tricky. I knew you were clever,” Nathalie said. “But, I didn’t know you were naughty. Guess I should’ve figured.”  
“It just sorta…transpired,” Mattie said.  
“Transpired, did it?” Nathalie said.  
“Salim told me about this event, and Tristen had mentioned this thing, shibari, and so…” Mattie said.  
Nathalie smirked as she said, “You saw your chance, and you took it?”  
“Yeah. How are things supposed to go?” Mattie said.  
“You’re supposed to be invited to an Ishtar event by a member of Ishtar, which Salim is not. That’s how its supposed to go,” Nathalie said firmly, the strength beneath the veneer of sweetness like winter beneath spring on an early March day.  
“Are you going to punish me?” Mattie asked.  
“Well, Pete, I should. I should tell Alexa, but I don’t want your scene to lose momentum. I don’t know if you’ve been online, but it’s doing well. I doubt anyone will recognize you tonight…but give it time,” Nathalie said. “Let’s get you dressed.”  
Mattie waited.  
“First, you gotta get undressed,” Nathalie reminded him.  
Mattie laughed nervously. “Oh, yeah,” he said.  
Somehow, he felt as wired as he had when he first filmed with Tristen, and the same uncanny feeling of trust towards Nathalie as he did when he played with Tristen and Alexa in the loft. There was a heady magic around the Ishtar people that pulled him in and guided him along the way the music of Tchaikovsky had when he was a dancer. Mattie got undressed, and Nathalie pulled some black clothes out of a plastic garment bag. At least, there was a black pair of pants. The next thing she handed him baffled Mattie. It looked like a broken seatbelt, but it was encrusted with thick and jagged black glitter that shone purple, green, and even smoldering gold like an antifreeze spill in the light.  
“It’s a harness. Put your arms through,” Nathalie said.  
“Whoa! I’m supposed to wear this?” Mattie asked.  
“You wanted to crash the gate, were you gonna streak, too?” she said.  
“I know I’ve gotta wear something, but this is a little….suggestive,” Mattie said.  
“Oh, you’re just showing off,” Nathalie said, with benign dismissiveness. Something about Nathalie not accepting his limitations helped him forget about them and shake them off, too.  
“Fine. I’ll wear it,” he said. “But…with a shirt?”  
“That’s really not how its done, my dear. But, fine-its your first event. If anybody asks, though, I’m not saying I invited you. Honesty is key at Ishtar, and I’m not lying for you. Nor are you going to lie to explain yourself,” Nathalie said.  
“Fine,” Mattie said. He could see why a world like their’s, of D/s, erotic events, and experimental feminist pornography would require a balance of discretion towards the outside world and honesty within ranks.  
Mattie put on the shirt, pants, and harness. He looked at himself in his bathroom mirror. He looked like Alex from “A Clockwork Orange” going through a Goth phase-minus the bowler hat and thankfully minus the codpiece. Thinking of the futuristic, violent, and sexually charged Kubrick film made the whole thing even more surreal-what he saw in the mirror, where he was going, and how much his life had changed.  
Nathalie stroked his hair. Mattie thought of the moment he had hurt his ankle, and how much he had wished someone else was there. His dance instructor, Madame Renault, had allowed him to practice after hours, with just him, her ancient stereo, and his music as long as he locked up. Mattie had always thought he preferred being alone, but he had wished someone was there to cry for help to when he felt the pain. He’d wished for someone to soothingly touch him the way that Nathalie was, now. Her hands brought back memories of Tristen and Alexa, their comforting, soothing, worshipping and skillful touch in the loft. When he closed his eyes, it was almost as if they were one person, as if he was being touched by some many-handed god of compassion.  
“Oh, look how you blush. You feel so easily, and so beautifully. I can know what you would like before I do it. I bet you’re sensitive here….” she said, and carefully stroked the length of Mattie’s neck with her fingertip. He couldn’t help it, it felt good and he smiled shakily and shivered.  
“Pretty boy…” Nathalie said. “Come on, let’s go.”

The city in which they lived was on what was called the state’s Fall Line. It was where all the rivers tumbled down from the mountains and poured into the James River, giving it the rapids loved by outdoor enthusiasts. As they drove towards those mountains, Mattie was conscious that they were travelling against the grain of the water, retracing its journey backwards, going towards the source of the river stitched along the heart of the city, that provided its recreation and natural beauty. The winding Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Bridge, suspended high over the marshes and pine forests, took them out of town, into dark rural territory quickly being carved into strip malls and condos, then beyond that into yet more forest. This land hadn’t been spoiled, and under stray starlight and moonlight Mattie could spy farmhouses and pastures behind fences, where in the daylight brown horses with dark eyes grazed. The air was beginning to change, and the land, too, becoming hills.  
Nathalie played old school country music on the drive through the mountains-mournful stuff with string arrangements or snappy southwestern bar music. Mattie was surprised-he thought she’d be the Emilie Autumn or Rasputina type. Mattie, sitting in the backseat, noticed Nathalie’s eyes in the mirror on the dash as she drove. Recognition and surprise flitted across her face at one song.  
“I forgot that one was on this mix,” she said.  
“Prom memories?” Salim asked.  
“No. That’s my sister. We used to perform together. Our stepdad, the human garbage fire, was our so-called manager. Creep! He got handsy, she kneed him in the balls and split, so there went our shot at being the next Judds or Dixie Chicks. I…landed on my feet. God, she could sing. I’d forgotten,” she said.  
Salim’s dark eyes glistened with shock at this horrible tale.  
“So, after your sister ran away, you found Ishtar?” Mattie asked.  
“I was doing a burlesque thing in New Orleans, basically getting paid in memories, and…the rest is history,” Nathalie.  
“When’s the last time you talked to her?” Mattie asked. “What’s her name?”  
“You do know curiosity killed the cat, right?” Nathalie said.  
“I’m not a cat,” Mattie said.  
“Her name’s Jessie, and actually, she lives around here, but she doesn’t sing anymore,” Nathalie said.  
“That sucks. I mean, listen to her. If someone has a talent like that, they should use it,” Salim said.  
His words hit home with Mattie, then he brushed it off. He consoled himself that he wasn’t wasting his talent, because he hadn’t been the best dancer. He didn’t have Misha’s strength and grace, or Celine’s consuming passion for a life of ballet. That was what it took to be the perfect dancer. Anyway, if he didn’t dance or Nathalie’s sister Jessie didn’t sing, what of it? Did potential and talent create obligation to others?  
“We’re close,” Nathalie said, and switched off the cd in the middle of “Delta Dawn” by Tanya Tucker.  
They turned onto a long drive. The gravel crackled beneath the slowly rolling tires. Lights were visible over the dark cedars along the drive, and eventually the crowded trees parted to reveal a lit and manicured verdant lawn, and beneath the half-full moon a large gray stone house that looked more like a European palace than anything that belonged in the North Carolina hills. It was just like the commercials, postcards, regional magazine spots, and wine bottle labels where Mattie had seen it: The Rosemoor. As they approached, he could practically hear Joan Fontaine say, “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”  
They joined a long line of vehicles being waved through to event parking.  
“I’m fucking dizzy,” Salim said.  
“Stage fright? Don’t be-you’re perfect for this life,” Nathalie said, and stroked his chin.  
Her extravagant affection came so naturally. Salim’s body calmed like a skittish horse in the hands of a sensitive stablehand. Mattie was impressed-Salim usually had a ‘too cool to care, having a good time, can’t be bothered’ veneer with most people. From time to time, he’d let his frustrations with working at the perfume shop and disagreeing with Amir show to Mattie, but that was just because everyone needed to vent. This was a different level of trust. He’d never seen him that way with Noor, to be sure. Together, the three of them walked across the lawn, and Mattie couldn’t get enough of looking around at the other guests. Some were wearing formal attire and Venetian carnival masks, others were, similarly to Salim, broadcasting their leanings toward the underworld of sexual fetishes in leather and latex, their faces hidden but their skin on display and graced with moonlight like a silver elixir. Mattie was wound up, gawking at everything in shock and fascination, but trying to play it cool and absorb the moment.  
A girl walked by them in a mouthless black velvet mask, wearing a leather skirt but no shirt-instead, her torso was criss-crossed with ropes the color of a raven’s wing, inky purple-black, tied in the knots and patterns that Mattie had seen online. Her large breasts were crossed and compressed by the ropes, but they didn’t look painful. She walked with poise, but seemed caught up in her thoughts. He watched her black hair bounce and her leather skirt shift as she walked down the long drive of the Rosemoor, towards the vineyards on the hillside.  
“Gabrielle!” Nathalie called, the girl’s name, apparently, but she didn’t respond.  
“A friend?” Mattie asked.  
“One more nosy question, and I’m going to have to punish you, Kitty-Cat,” Nathalie said.  
“You told me that slaves have to agree and consent,” Mattie said.  
Salim was an observant, smart person, despite Amir’s belief that he underachieved. He was a good salesman-he took things in about the customers, listened to their conversations amongst themselves as they approached the shop, looked at the brands they were wearing and guessed what fragrance they would ask for. Mattie could tell he caught the reference Mattie made to his prior conversation with Nathalie.  
“Very good,” Nathalie, praising him for remembering, but beneath her ebullient confidence Mattie could tell she was conscious that she had slipped up and revealed that they knew each other before.  
She added, “She’s not someone I know well, but we know some people in common. She looked upset.”  
“Maybe bondage isn’t her thing,” Salim said.  
“Well, she checked out early. Speaking of, you’re free to tap out at any time. If this isn’t for you, that’s cool,” Nathalie said.  
“He’s fine, trust me. Hey, I should set up. See you guys later?” Salim said.  
Mattie nodded, Nathalie kissed his cheek. When Salim was gone, Mattie felt the need to say,  
“He has a girlfriend, and she’s my friend.”  
“Loyalty-we value that at Ishtar. Don’t worry, there’s nothing going on with me and Salim. He’s sweet, and talented, and I’m…Southern. I just love everybody, its no big deal. I had a feeling you weren’t from around here,” Nathalie said.  
“I’m not really from anywhere. We spent some time in France, then New York City, then after the divorce my mom moved here mostly because of the low property taxes,” Mattie said.  
“Where do you feel at home?” Nathalie asked, as they walked up the steps toward the entrance.  
“I guess since I always thought I’d dance for a living, I never got attached to any one place. You may change companies after a few years, and you travel all the time, so you prepare yourself for that and just make dance the foundation, the gravity, prepare yourself to leave every place behind,” Mattie said.

“I don’t know where home is, either. When I listen to ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ by Loretta Lynn I just love the way she says “Butcher’s Holler.” She knows exactly where she’s from: Butcher’s Holler, and she has a particular way of saying it, like everyone from there says it that way. I long for that kind of continuity and identity,” Nathalie said.  
She reached for Mattie’s hand, and he squeezed it.  
“I don’t know who Loretta Lynn is,” he said.  
Nathalie threw her head back and laughed freely. “Don’t worry about it!” she said.  
They walked into the Rosemoor, and Mattie stared up at the ceiling. The Baroque walls that looked like wedding cake icing terminated in a vaulted Rococco fresco of frolicking cherubs on clouds lit gold by the chandelier’s thrown light. It would all look pretty tacky if not carried out with that late nineteenth century American ambition to recreate the artistic glory of Europe, even compete with it. This meant a referential mixing of styles and eras that became its own aesthetic, evoking the novels of Edith Wharton and Henry James and their Edwardian luxury.  
The music of an Asian instrument, dulcet and serene, played hypnotically from somewhere unseen. Nathalie guided Mattie in the direction of the music. They followed the other guests, in their masks.  
“Should we be wearing them?” Mattie asked.  
“If you want one, we’ll find you one,” Nathalie said. “But it’s not a requirement.”  
Mattie had been to a lot of museums with his parents, and as everyone filed into a large anteroom he began to feel the reverent peace of spaces where old, valuable art is being displayed. It was familiar, but inherently calming. It was a particular feeling to be in the presence of beauty, and to be amongst others who are, as well.  
The first of the scrolls behind glass that caught Mattie’s eye was one he recognized from various reprints in artbooks and other settings: “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” by Katsuhiko Hokusai. The most famous Meiji era Japanese woodblock artist, he was most known for “The Great Wave”, showing boats tossed in the heart of a tsunami. Mattie could remember staring dreamily at the careful lines and bright colors of that painting in an art encyclopedia when he was just a little boy.  
“The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife,” on the other hand, was no landscape. A woman with ivory skin and raven hair lay in a sensual tangle of her own pliant limbs and askewed clothes, her head tossed back in sensual enjoyment and her pubic hair distractingly visible as a pinkish-grey giant squid performed cunnilingus on her. The fisherman’s wife is clearly in ecstasy-the sea monster is impassive.  
“You know that one?” someone asked, from behind him, a female voice. Mattie could tell that they were wearing a mask, because the voice was muffled, but he could still feel the vibrations of speech along his neck.  
“Yeah, its famous. It can’t be an original-that would be very valuable,” Mattie asked.  
“Priceless,” said the masked woman. “These scrolls are called shunga. They’re ukiyo-e, of a sort.”  
“Ukiyo-e…floating world art. Samurai, courtesans, the lowlifes of Edo,” Mattie said. The synchronicity excited him-he had been studying them just hours before.   
“They weren’t low lives. They were shunned by the aristocracy, so they created their own world. Sort of like the vaudeville performers and expatriates that created Hollywood here in America. And, just like Hollywood, so-called respectable society was fascinated by them and found the kabuki actors and courtesans of the underworld irresistibly seductive, if unattainable,” she said.  
Mattie knew that voice. It was undoubtedly Alexa. “Sort of like Ishtar,” he continued, even though his stomach was beginning to feel tight and achy. What would she say about him sneaking into the event?  
“Sort of. Here, we create our own world. We feed what is taboo to our art, and share it amongst ourselves,” she said. “That’s how shunga was circulated-first amongst courtiers in their pillow books in the Heian era, then centuries later they were printed and circulated amongst the common people during the Meiji era. You are an art major, aren’t you? Good. The human body can’t shock you.”  
“There’s a lot of nudity in art,” Mattie conceded, and turned around to face Alexa. She was wearing only a filmy peignoir that looked like seafoam, and rested like a gliding stormcloud on her bronze skin. He could see all of her tattoos-the furious faced "Water Margins" outlaw warriors, the koi, cherry blossoms, and dragons.  
“Walk with me,” she said calmly, her voice a massaging lullaby like the music playing.  
She caressed his back as they walked. Mattie thought of her masturbating as Tristen rimmed him in the loft. He had been so sweaty and racked with pleasure, and the sight of her was one of the spices of the bouquet.  
They looked at the scrolls as they walked, Alexa’s hands freely stroking him as if he were a small pet. They depicted men and women in each other’s arms, their kimono askew or wrapped around them, shielding their bodies from the viewer, or fantastical scenes such as women in the throes of climax at the attentions of thunder and fox demons, ghosts and sea monsters. In some pictures, the shadow of a voyeur is visible behind a shoji screen as lovers couple.  
“The saying goes, 'Walls have ears, shoji screens have eyes',” Alexa said, of these scrolls.  
Many scrolls actually depicted lovers looking at orgiastic scenes depicted on a scroll laid out before them. Others depicted imperiled women tied up in ropes.  
“This is one of the oldest themes in shunga. The creation of the world by Izanami and Izanagi, the mother and father of the gods,” Alexa said, gesturing to a scroll.  
“Are you Japanese?” Mattie asked.  
“I don’t know how to answer that, really,” she said. “There are some who would say no. I guess I’m lucky I grew up in the States-it can be hard for Hafu, in Japan.”  
“I think it’s always hard to be more than one thing. People make it weird, they don’t get it,” Mattie said.  
“Its all about broadening your perception of what’s possible. That’s why the subject of desire has always fascinated me-people’s tastes are so diverse. You see it in this art, from so long ago. Some dream of being restrained, even threatened, overpowered. Some dream of a stolen moment with the lover they can’t have-or watching someone else have one. Some even dream of creatures that can’t exist on earth,” Alexa said. “Speaking of desire, we’ll need to find you a mask, or the guests who've seen you online will swarm like locusts. You weren’t supposed to be seen yet, Pete. Don’t think I didn’t know that your presence here wasn’t requested or cleared.”  
“I’m sorry. My buddy, Salim, is DJing, and…” Mattie began.  
Alexa held up one finger. “Don’t cower,” she said.  
Mattie stopped cowering.  
“I didn’t want you here, Pete. Do you understand that?” she said.  
Mattie nodded.  
“For your own good. We’ve already gotten some thirsty emails about you and Tristen,” she said. “But, we film again when I think you’re ready. As for the rest…”  
“The rest?” Mattie asked.  
“Something brought you here. The anima at the head of the labyrinth, beckoning you to its heart,” she said. “You want to see more of Ishtar.”  
It wasn’t a question. The only sexual encounters Mattie had ever had in his life were in Ishtar settings, with its artists, Tristen and Alexa. He wanted more, of the heady freedom he had felt. He wanted to see more.  
Nathalie appeared at their sides with a mask. As she fitted the mask over Mattie’s face, he could feel in her hands that she was serving Alexa. So was he.  
“Is Tristen here?” he asked.  
Neither Alexa or Nathalie answered.  
Mattie followed them up a cranberry carpeted staircase. They entered a large library whose walls were covered by a Renaissance tapestry of long necked blonde maidens and bearded unicorns against a red, floral detailed background. Men and women, in their masks, leather, mesh, or velvet were seated in Versailles-esque French furniture. A projection screen hung over an oak dais, and the lights dimmed as the projection began.  
Mattie recognized the emerald velvet covers and canopy curtains of the bed where he had lost his virginity to Tristen Ludlowe. Time around him felt slow and surreal, like the dreamwalker's pace of a Kubrick film as he watched his body and Tristen's against the green velvet covers. They embraced and wedded their flesh like the subjects of the shunga scrolls, art in the contrast of their bodies and the way they fit together though they were so different: Mattie, slight and pale, Tristen, large and ruddy, tangled and sighing in each other's arms. The masked men and women around him were watching him, watching Tristen fuck him. Mattie's skin was on fire, and he wanted to flee, but he couldn't stop watching. Even as he wanted to twist away from the sight of his own face, as ecstatic as the Fisherman's wife, and his body spread out and gripping to Tristen, he couldn't take his eyes off Tristen-he was beautiful. As weird as it was watching himself, he couldn't stop watching the blissful determination written on Tristen's face, the passion and freedom in the undulations of his body, and the tenderness in his hands as he held Mattie's shuddering thighs as he surged between them. Tristen's blushing belly tensed as he rolled his hips, his body lapping against Mattie's like ocean waves. Now that he was a spectator in the act, he could see that Tristen was an experienced but attentive lover who enjoyed the act fully. He felt the ghost of Tristen's touch beneath his clothes. His nipples suddenly felt hot and sensitive beneath his shirt.  
“You’re blushing, Pete,” Nathalie said, and stroked his neck with her fingertips again. Each touch was like a kiss. Mattie closed his eyes, reliving the same memories being projected on the screen.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie comes to the attention of two Ishtar members; Alexa intervenes; "Tristen" helps prepare Mattie

When Mattie opened his eyes, the first thing he was aware of was how hot his face was. Then his sense of hearing kicked in as if on a delay, and he heard the noises that he and Tristen had made, played back for all to see and hear. He couldn’t look at himself on screen, so instead he looked at the people in the room, seated on 18th century French furniture. Barely contained erotic appreciation hummed from their body in waves, like the vibration of sound. He heard wordless noises in the dark, laughter, sighs, small stray noises with wings carried on breaths.   
He looked at a couple in Carnevale dress and black masks. Rather than laughably costumey in their Versailles-esque dress, they looked more at home in the room than anyone else, as if they haunted it and had done for centuries, everyone else was just a tourist. They were looking at Mattie-not the nude version of himself on screen, that had been filmed weeks ago, who was a virgin at the beginning of the scene but not one by the end, who minutes after the cameras stopped rolling would bathe in a steamy bath in an amethyst tub with Tristen and beg him for his name. No, they were staring in his direction, as if they could see through his mask, and knew that he was the young man in the film.  
He knew that he should look away, but the woman’s gray eyes had a magnetism that pulled his face in their direction. There was no mistaking the predatory desire in them. The man’s gaze wats colder, but just as unflinching, and the combined effect of their gaze was that of fire and ice. To be with them wouldn’t be anything resembling the safety and tenderness he had felt with Tristen and Alexa-to this couple, he would be a plaything, and to look at them felt forbidden. He could feel their appraisal seeping beneath his clothes. Their stare caressed him, though the masks rendered their faces impassive. He could almost feel them reading his mind. He took off his mask. He felt as if he was being commanded to do so, by their eyes. That was the danger of them-they could make him give them anything they wanted.   
“Matthieu, we’re leaving now,” Alexa said. “Walk behind me.”  
Mattie obeyed, and followed Alexa out of the salon.  
“Who told you to remove your mask?” She accosted him silkily.  
Her choice of words had come more to the point than she could have known. Who’d told him? They’d told him without saying a word, touched him as if they owned him without removing their hands from their lap, and he felt their loveless and entitled caresses along his back, still. His face burned.  
“I felt like…I don’t know, its like when Emmaline eats the berries at the end of ‘The Blue Lagoon’. She knows they’re poisonous, she just does it. Its like life makes her do it,” Mattie said.  
“Your defense is ‘The Blue Lagoon’?” Alexa said. “Hopefully no one saw your face. I told you that your scene was doing brisk business. Now that you’ve been seen, the djinn is out of the bottle.”  
“What will happen?” Mattie asked.  
“They can request your appearance at future events, to start with,” Alexa said.  
“Oh. Cool. Like Paris Hilton and the Kardashians. You get paid to party? Not bad,” Mattie said.  
“No, fool. You wouldn’t just be dancing,” said Nathalie, who had caught up with him.  
“What do you do at events, then? What would I be doing?” Mattie said.  
“Well, that depends on who requested you, and how much they pay. There are different tiers of membership. Maybe you’d put on a little show for all of us. Maybe you’d play with the Domme who requested you-maybe a little bit of both,” Nathalie said. She went for a naughty, ‘Hey, Sailor!’ kind of tone, but it didn’t stick.   
“I’m not ready for that kind of thing,” Mattie admitted. He just wanted to see Tristen again. He wanted to sleep with him, and know that Tristen liked him.  
“The Valmonts might have seen him,” Alexa filled in.  
“Shit. They play hard. Spidey here would never get right,” Nathalie said.   
“They might not have seen enough of him to put together that he’s Pete Parker,” Alexa said.  
“Yeah, but that’s an optimistic read. You’re not an optimist,” Nathalie said.  
As they walked, they passed women in latex outfits walking men on leashes, on their hands and knees like animals. They looked down at the floor, their necks hung in an attitude of humility. Mattie wondered what it was like to be in their place. The women leading them looked jubilantly invincible. Some wore masks, some didn’t. Those that didn’t nodded at Alexa. She knew many people. A tall, curvaceous woman with light brown skin and Asian features in a cranberry velvet mermaid tail gown smiled especially warmly at Alexa, and greeted her in French. She kissed both Alexa’s cheeks and said, in English,  
“My dear girl!”  
“Patrice,” Alexa said. “I had no idea you would be here!”  
“I’m looking for someone. We left a conversation unfinished in Sicily, and I hate unfinished business,” Patrice said.  
“I hope you find him,” Alexa said.  
“Her,” Patrice said. “In fact, if you come across a young woman called Gabrielle, direct her to me, dearest.”  
“Yes, Mistress,” Alexa said. She sounded silkenly demure, and her voice was full of love. Mattie was surprised at her obeisance, that it could exist alongside the graceful confidence she exuded.   
Patrice moved on, and Nathalie said, “Whoa, I just saw Gabrielle, literally. Something tells me something heavy is going on between those two.”  
Alexa’s expression said, ‘That’s their business.’  
“Patrice was my teacher,” Alexa explained to Mattie.  
“Like, she taught you how to be a dominatrix?” Mattie said.  
“She taught me how not to hate myself. Ishtar is all about empowerment. But, every organization, even those with the best of intentions, has a few outliers, renegades, those who thrive on chaos. The Valmonts are that type, and if they want you, its to corrupt you for their satisfaction. I think I can prevent that,” Alexa said.   
“How?” Mattie asked.  
“A slight alteration to tonight’s proceedings. I hope Tristen doesn’t mind,” Alexa said.  
“Somehow, I doubt he will,” Nathalie said.  
“Trust me,” Alexa said.  
“Of course,” Mattie said.  
Alexa seemed mollified. They entered a drawing room where Tristen was waiting. His patrician handsomeness was suited to the Edwardian setting. He looked like a suitor in a Merchant-Ivory film.   
“Slight change of plans. I’ll be tying Pete,” Alexa said.  
“Hell, no,” Tristen said.  
“What was that?” Alexa said. Even Mattie, so new to all this, was shocked, that Tristen would speak to his Mistress that way. Nathalie’s playful gaze faded to a certain tense watchfulness, seeing what would happen next and if it would be ugly.  
“Lex…” Tristen said, more plaintively. “His first scene just premiered. They’ll be requesting him left and right if they see him tied.”  
“Yeah, well shit happens, Prettyboy. Unless you want him locked in a cage in a wine cellar, with a gag in his mouth, and a moonstone dildo with Isabelle Valmont’s initials carved on it up his cute little butt, this is how its gotta be tonight,” Nathalie said.  
Mattie blanched.  
“What the Hell?” Tristen said.  
“Those superb freaks from Paris saw him. Ordinarily, I admire their work, but that’s because revenge turns me on-messed up childhood, you know? But Pete here is a sweet little thing, still. You’re the right pace for him,” Nathalie said.  
“I’m not a sweet little thing! You said that Ishtar is about empowerment, you’re talking about me like I’m a truffle!” Pete said.  
“The chocolate kind or the mushroom kind?” Nathalie said.  
“Ishtar does empower people to embrace their desires without shame, and to accept themselves, their light and their dark, to integrate the two into a whole understanding. This isn’t about limiting the perimeters of your experience, or taking it out of your control. Its about protecting you from the consequences of an understandable mistake. No one here has seen your face at length. Maybe Sebastien and Isabelle have, maybe they haven’t, but just in case we’re going to show them that you’re mine,” Alexa said.  
“Your’s? Like Tristen is?” Mattie said.  
“You don’t have to commit to submission, but just for tonight’s purposes I think it would be best if we allow people to think that you’re my sub. So, I’m going to tie you. People will see, word will get round, and maybe we’ll have put out a fire before it burns the house down,” Alexa said.  
“I get it,” Tristen said, and added, “Forgive me.”  
“You’re always forgiven, but you will still be taught never to do it again. Later,” Alexa said.  
The fact that she could threaten a big man like Tristen, and Mattie watched the way her words made him swallow, his throat shudder, his shoulders tense slightly as if bracing himself, intrigued Mattie and made him feel warm.  
“Help him stretch. We don’t want any injuries,” Alexa said. “I’m going to meditate before we perform.”  
Nathalie and Alexa left through a hidden door in the wallpaper.  
“Sorry I got you into trouble,” Mattie said.  
“I did that all on my own,” Tristen said. “So, what exactly happened?”  
“Do you think some people can read minds?” Mattie asked.  
Tristen smirked. He looked as intriguingly insensitive as a young Harrison Ford, and his feet were perched on the coffee table with a mix of disdain for its antique value and a certain joie de vivre in repose.  
“Where are we going with this, Spidey?” Tristen asked.  
“That couple, the Valmonts…Nathalie called them superb freaks. What did she mean?” Mattie asked.  
“I think Nathalie has her own lingo and a wicked sense of humor. We’re all freaks, here, aren’t we?” Tristen said, and drank a glass of wine like someone born to drink a glass of wine in a room in an American castle.  
“I felt like they could read my mind, and compelled me to take my mask off, somehow. I could feel that they wanted me to. I could feel that they wanted me to obey them, and the strange part is that I wanted to,” Mattie said.  
Tristen looked at him intently. His eyes darkened with listening.  
“I understand. Some people have that quality, and the others have a quality that makes surrender a temptation they’re susceptible to. Maybe it’s like having a tendency towards addiction-you’re looking for an altered state, and it can become your substance, something you crave. The person that can put you in that state…” Tristen said.  
“Is like the drug dealer. So, Ishtar hooks junkies up with dealers?” Mattie said.  
“It gives people who want to dominate and people who want to submit discreet and beautiful places to do their thing,” Tristen said. “What you felt is why you’re here. Its normal.”  
“I’m here because I need money,” Mattie said.  
Tristen raised a sandy-auburn eyebrow.  
“But…I liked it, too,” Mattie added.  
“I’m glad you liked it. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, since, Matthieu,” Tristen said.  
Mattie felt warmth pierce his stomach when Tristen said his real name. He’d got used to ‘Pete’.  
“Come on-you’ve gotta stretch before being tied, or you could get hurt,” Tristen said.   
He got to his feet and walked towards an Afghani carpet in front of a fireplace so big there was a wooden bench in its interior. He beckoned for Mattie to follow him.  
“Lie down,” Tristen instructed him.   
Mattie did so.   
“Take a deep breath, into your abdomen, and then exhale completely,” Tristen said.   
Mattie did so, and after a few breaths, he began to feel lighter and more relaxed. His limbs surrendered their tension, as did their shoulders, and he felt the carpet beneath him in more definition, though his body felt lighter. The carpet was thick and soft. His spine began to feel electrified, and he could feel currents of heat and cold rushing up and down to the top of his head and then back down to the small his back. It was almost like the hot and cold he had felt when the Valmont’s looked at him, but this came from within and felt like an ocean wheeling within him, rather than a storm outside of himself. His stomach tightened and his hips stuttered when he felt Tristen begin to massage his scalp.  
“Mmmmm,” Mattie couldn’t stop himself from moaning.  
“That’s good. Relax,” Tristen said. “You go after what you want, don’t you, Spidey?”  
“What do you mean?” Mattie asked, but his words were delayed as he was wracked with shivers beneath Tristen’s hands. He felt them in his nipples, even though they were nowhere close to where Tristen was touching him. The echoes rang through his body.  
“I mean, you ended up at Ishtar when your tuition went up, and you started filming ad asking questions like you don’t know how to be afraid. Then, you snuck in here-yeah, I know that you weren’t invited. And, then there’s the fact that you’re about to be tied days after asking me what Shibari is. If something makes you curious, or you need something, you just go for it and don’t look back. That can get you hurt,” Tristen said.  
“You’re not going to hurt me,” Mattie said.  
“I’m not the only person in the world,” Tristen said.  
“You’re the only person here,” Mattie said.  
“Bend your knees, and put your feet on the floor,” Tristen said.  
Mattie obeyed. Tristen crawled beside him, on all floors like the men he had wondered about in the hall, but his body felt purposeful and elusively powerful, like a wild cat that lived in the shadows of pines. Mattie was an ocean, Tristen was a cloud passing over him, until he felt his hands on his knees.  
“Let go,” Tristen said, and Mattie went limp in his hands, feeling the warmth of Tristen’s hands on his knees as Tristen moved his knees side to side, like windshield wipers. Mattie quickly caught on that he had to let his body open from the lower back. Tension crested, surged, and capsized there, and again Mattie moaned. As he did, Tristen gently folded his legs to one side, and then the other.  
“Arms over your head. Let’s open those shoulders, babe,” Tristen said.  
Babe….Mattie knew that Americans were more casual with endearments than the French, and he was used to the differences between the two cultures, but still it touched him. He trusted Tristen, and he realized that Ishtar couldn’t exist without trust. This intimate and complicated bond that the Mistresses and subs of Ishtar called ‘slavery’ needed trust to retain its heart. He felt complete trust as Tristen took the juncture of his knees and calves in his hands, and Mattie unfolded like opening petals into Tristen’s palms, into Happy Baby pose supported in Tristen’s hands.   
“Your hips, spine, and shoulders are open-you should be good,” Tristen said.  
“Thank you,” Mattie said. “I know I’ve pushed you, and I know I was wrong. Thanks for taking care of me, every time we see each other.”  
“Don’t thank me yet,” Tristen said. “You might regret gatecrashing after Lex ties you. You may never want to see any of us again.”  
“We’re all freaks, Tristen. I can hang,” Mattie said.  
“Are we ready, dolls?” Nathalie asked.   
She was wearing a red dress made entirely of knotted parachord, and holding a black violin. She was accompanied by Alexa, who was wearing a glisteningly snow white silk kimono embroidered with white chrysanthemums in white thread. Mattie knew from his art studies that chrysanthemums were a symbol of Japan’s Imperial house, who believed themselves to be descended from the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. Although she had confided that there were those who wouldn’t accept her mixed race heritage, Alexa’s kimono was clearly a message of pride in her heritage. He wondered how much of this self-acceptance could be traced back to Patrice, the intriguing French-Asian Domme they had met in the hallway, and what Alexa’s education had been like. He could only imagine her as a Mistress, now.   
“He’s all loosey-goosey,” Tristen said, with pride. Nathalie laughed freely, and Alexa smiled with cool, feline detachment and serenity.   
“Follow me, Pete,” she said, and stepped out into the hallway.  
Lovers coupled shamelessly in the corridors, like an illustration of a clandestinely distributed Victorian book come to life in tones of flesh, with heat and musk. The girl they saw earlier, Gabrielle, was one of them, her copper brown hands stroking the ridges of her lover’s spine as he assailed her with an almost desperate desire. Her mask was gone, as Mattie’s had been, and he momentarily caught her gaze as her lover moaned into her hair. Mattie was glad that she had found who she was looking for.   
“Keep walking. Keep your mask on,” Alexa ordered. Mattie felt like Eurydice, ordered not to glance over her shoulder at the Underworld as she returned to the light. 

Backstage, behind the wine red velvet curtains, girls in red parachord dresses affixed with only shibari knots were lounging in chairs and clicking away at their smart phones, occasionally showing each other memes and giggling, or applying various cosmetic touch-ups to keep their hair or face in place.   
“You’re lucky-tying this whole get-up on took two hours. You’ve just gotta get undressed,” Nathalie said.  
“I’m going to be naked?” Mattie asked.  
“You may keep your underwear on, Pete-I’m a sadist, but not a cruel one,” Alexa said playfully. “But, I will have to blindfold you.”  
“Good-I won’t be able to see the crowd,” Pete said.  
“Oh, but they’ll see you, darlin’,” Nathalie said.  
She blindfolded Pete with a black silk tie, and he felt hands in the dark helping him out of his clothes.   
“Tristen, you may assist. The two of you will always be linked, now that your scene has premiered, so we’ll embrace it. You’re both mine-you’re like…brothers,” Alexa said.  
Mattie wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but there was also something mystical and poetic about it, like the lover and beloved of the Song of Songs. Brothers in ecstatic bliss, twins in sensual experience. Tristan took Mattie’s hand. The curtains caressed Mattie’s face as they parted. He heard the murmurs and applause of the crowd, but he could see nothing.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie is introduced to shibari/kinbaku.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, Galentine's Day, and Single Folks' Awareness Day, y'all! Whatever you celebrate, enjoy yourself, and thank you for everything. I love you all! Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!

Mattie could only feel, since he couldn’t see. He felt Tristen’s hand release him, and he felt the spacious air around him. Barefoot, he felt the cold stage, and soft, silky petals under his feet. He tested their texture with the sole of his foot, and they proved to be real petals. He sniffed the air-cherry blossoms.  
Somehow he could feel the crowd beyond the stage, as if their energy was a constellation of warm stars whose heat travelled to him. He could feel he expectant gazes on his bare skin. The music began. The music that he had heard before, the hypnotic koto, began, and was answered by a violin that he was sure was Nathalie’s. The music was an intoxicatingly complimentary blend of Eastern and Western sounds.  
Alexa’s soft, slender, gentle hand encircled Mattie’s wrist, and led him to the center of the stage. He tuned into the music, and willed his body to be pliant in Alexa’s hands. It was almost like moments he had experienced in dance, when he felt so connected to the music that all his doubts ceased and his body knew exactly what it was supposed to do. In the dark, behind the blindfold, he felt more than comfortable giving up control of his body.  
First, Alexa guided his wrists together, and bound them behind his back. Mattie felt his shoulders open a bit more, and he grounded the soles of his feet to the petal strewn stage as his spine straightened. It was amazing, how one action in the body provoked others, how every nerve and muscle spoke to each other and had its part in the dance.  
She wound more rope around his waist, and his first impression was that the rope went on cold and smooth and then its true texture announced itself, and it burned slightly. He could tell that this was the smoother dyed rope that he had seen the girls backstage and Nathalie’s friend, Gabrielle, wearing, not the natural fiber hemp chord he had seen in some of the pictures that he and Salim had seen online. That really would have been rough, but this rope still became hot as it rested on his bare chest. As Alexa pulled the rope in several different passes, it became tighter on his chest and stomach. Nathalie’s violin moaned, as the koto murmured. Mattie was conscious of the saliva in his mouth, and the slight tension in his formerly injured ankle, contrasting it from the tensionless uninjured ankle. He had grown into the habit of putting more weight on the uninjured ankle, holding the injured ankle bent, and for the first time he could feel the sight strain this put on his lower back.  
As if Tristen had read his thoughts, his warm, large hand rested on Mattie’s lower back and steadied him as Alexa tightened the ropes.  
He had read that Shibari meant merely tying, and Kinbaku meant ‘tight binding.’ The name of the event, Kinbaku-Bi, meant ‘the beauty of tight binding.’ This, then, was kinbaku-the way the ropes held him, not quite restricting his breathing but bringing the need for breath into such sharp prominence that he could not take it for granted anymore. Each inhale and exhale felt heightened, something of a struggle but also a keenly felt pleasure, since he had to breath deeper to bring the air into his abdomen in spite of the shell of ropes that encased him. As Mattie breathed deeply, the air warmed and shook him.  
Tristen lovingly ran his palm along Mattie’s face.  
“You okay?” he whispered.  
“Better than okay,” Mattie responded. His head was light, but it didn’t feel dangerous. Shivers pooled at the top of his head like mist over the surface of a lake in the morning.  
“Good,” Tristen said. “You’re doing good.”  
He felt Tristen move down, knealing beside Mattie’s body. The mystery of what he was going to do provided Mattie with a few seconds of thrilling suspense, and its sequel was the shock of Tristen’s hand massaging his legs, running his palms up and down his thighs and calves. Mattie instantly felt relaxed, utterly seduced. Almost like when the Valmonts had stared at him at the viewing of his scene, he felt like he would do anything, he had surrendered.  
Alexa’s presence, the silk of her hair, the tickling graze of her kimono, and the smell of rain and jasmine from her hair and neck, was beside him, and beneath the koto and violin, the sound of Mattie’s breathing, and the murmurs of the audience, he heard the singing of the ropes. The ropes became the loudest sound, a whipping and slithering sound, as Alexa bound his legs.  
“Watch his ankle,” She instructed Tristen. “Old ballet injury.”  
Mattie felt a serenity he had never truly known, before. He was used to the scrutiny of ballet and the invisibility of college, and the constraints of working in retail with its pressure to constantly keep the shop tidy, never let your hands fall idle, and say the right thing to land a sale with a customer. This was different than anything he had ever known-it was a private peace that made Mattie aware of his body on every level, of sound and taste and sound, of the little pains and quirks of posture, and the process of relaxation, within his body. It was intoxicating, to be so aware, so alive, so himself.  
“Lay on your stomach,” Tristen said, and helped Mattie to first kneel and then lie down. He massaged his back, and then coaxed Mattie’s shins to bend. Alexa coaxed Mattie to reach behind him. He was in Yogic Bow Pose, or in position to be hog tied. They tied his wrists and ankles, and yet again Mattie listened to the singing of the rope. With every breath, his skin was on fire, and he felt drunk.  
Alexa’s and Tristen’s hands supported and bent his body as they tied the ropes binding his ankles and the rope extending from the coils of rope that bound his torso to a metal ring. He heard the whisper of the rope and the singing of the metal as they tied. . His spine opened as his body was bent into the shape that they desired. Mattie felt himself breathe into his body’s limits and relax beyond them.  
The music ceased. The blindfold was removed. He saw Tristen, beside him, wearing a black mask, then looked out into the crowd. They were in a private opera theater. The spectator’s faces were lit by the crystal-thrown flames of chandeliers. There was a pause. Mattie took a breath, exhaled, and then the masked spectators’ applause began.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mattie continues to experience Kinbaku, at Tristen's and Alexa's hands...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for following! In this chapter, the slow burn of Mattie's growth continues. He is finally crossing one barrier, learning what kinbaku is and experiencing it, although Tristen's name eludes him. The mysteries of Ishtar are both exposing him to new things, and reigniting his instincts from his days in ballet, his need to be apart of a creative endeavor. I hope that you enjoy!

Mattie was used to applause. Even though he had never had a prominent role, he had performed in at least one major production every year, from the ages of 8 to 18. He wasn’t nervous, but he did feel confused as to why the blindfold had been removed if Alexa didn’t want his face to be shown. It clicked with him that this was the show of dominance that she had wished for-his face was out there, but under her terms, while he was clearly in unambiguous submission.

The light of the chandelier, the Baroque theater, and the faces in the crowd ceased to be important. He batted away his thoughts and surrendered once again to feeling, to a state of surrender. He’d had moments, at the barre during morning class, during rehearsal, and even in performance when he felt his body becoming more than assuming a pose. His own inclinations to slouch, to fiddle with his clothes or face simply weren’t there anymore, and he surrendered to purpose. This was such a moment, and how he had missed it. Tristen met his eyes, and Mattie felt grounded and cared for. He allowed Mattie to untie the ropes at his ankles. One by one, Mattie’s toes touched the petal strewn stage. Alexa untied the ropes that bound his torso and were attached to the metal ring. Mattie’s skin felt sensitive, but his body felt massaged and soothed. He felt the way he did when he woke up in the morning and was reluctant to get out of warm, cozy bed-the nestle of the ropes felt safe and comfortable. There was pain, but it didn’t hurt so much as define with its stiff embrace and earthy burn the very perimeters that were inducing this feeling of safety.

Nathalie’s and the koto artists’s duet was replaced with Taiko drums. Under ordinary circumstances, Mattie would be looking about the theater to see where the percussionists were stationed-Taiko performances were very spirited, captivatingly so. Mattie was beyond a normal state of mind, in a state of bodily and emotional trust. He glimpsed Tristen’s and Alexa’s eyes as they handled his body. Mattie trusted his weight to Tristen, as if they were dancing a pas de deux and Mattie were the ballerina. There was something forbidden about the thought. It wasn’t unprecedented for two men to dance a pas de deux, but it would only be in the most avante garde productions and companies, far from the classical romantic sphere that Celine inhabited, and the world that Mattie had known.   
Tristen coaxed Mattie to touch the tip of his toe to the floor, as Alexa tied his wrists to a bamboo beam.  
“Lift,” Tristen whispered, and Mattie obeyed, lifting his leg as he had done so many times to position it on the barre in a pre-class stretch. His abdominal muscles engaged in the same way as then. It was uncanny how the little microactions of his body mimicked those he had utilized countless times in dance were returning to him in Kinbaku.   
“Watch his ankle,” Alexa instructed Tristen, as they tied Mattie’s ankle at such an angle that his leg was splayed open provocatively. Mattie had seen captive maidens in the woodcut illustrations on display in the art exhibit he had seen upon entering the Rosemoor tied in this way, helpless and displayed with an appealing look of rhapsodic pain on their faces, pain that approached bliss. Now, Mattie was literally in their position. He didn’t feel pain. Alexa and Tristen weren’t the imperious and ruthless samurai of the woodcuts, brandishing a sword and seething at him. They were patient, compassionate, taking care not to hurt him, like the way they had handled his ankle, and they were artists. Mattie felt like he was apart of something beautiful again. It was why he hadn’t minded for so long that he wasn’t a star, like Celine-he still got to be apart of all the magic. Mischa had called it illusion, but were illusions not magic? It was all just a difference of perception. The surrender that he felt towards Tristen and Alexa was different than the dark magnetism he felt towards the Valmonts. Whatever they had represented to him in an instinctual, wordless way, it was something he wasn’t ready for, yet.  
Sweat began to form in pearls along Mattie’s face. He could mark each second that he spent in the position in which he was tied by the way the sweat bloomed and trickled down his face. After awhile he was untied from the bamboo beam, and coaxed to kneel, his back to the audience as Alexa tied a complex pattern of ropes along his arms. Tristen, still masked, held his gaze, and with his eyes alone seemed to be asking if Mattie was okay, if he could take this.  
Mattie tried to answer with his eyes that he wanted this, he could do this. By the time the music faded, the curtain fell, and mild darkness replaced the bright stage lights, Alexa was untying Mattie’s arms.   
“How do you feel?” she asked.  
“I feel really calm. But, what did all this mean, like, in Ishtar terms?” Mattie said.  
“In Ishtar terms, it means that you’re mine. Does that sit all right with you, Matthieu?” Alexa said. Her tone was just playful enough, that Mattie felt free to smile, bemused.  
“So, you can tie me up anytime you like?” he asked.  
“No,” Alexa said. “As I told you, this isn’t a true Domme and sub relationship, as Tristen and I have. But, no one else will know that, and if they want to request you to perform or play with them, I have to grant my permission. Its just a fail safe.”  
“A fail safe,” Mattie repeated. “Okay. I can handle that.”  
“You’ve handled everything else admirably tonight. Now, go sleep it off. When’s the next time you’re going to be at the Rosemoor overnight?” Alexa asked.  
She was right. This all felt once in a lifetime.   
“Here,” Tristen said, and handed Mattie a discarded robe on a makeup chair. “Let’s find somewhere to sleep.”  
Mattie followed him. It had been a strange, interesting night.


End file.
